


Into the Woods

by neverwherever



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Christmas, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Season/Series 02, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 08:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10681935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwherever/pseuds/neverwherever
Summary: People are dying and disappearing in strange, bloody ways in the snowy mountains of Montana. Sam and Dean might just stumble onto something they're not equipped to handle.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be read as a "lost episode" of Season 2. Adjust your perspectives of the boys accordingly; they were pretty much just kids back then.

_December 22nd. Bitterroot National Forest, western Montana._

It was bitter cold in the mountains. A light dusting of snow had settled in the trees and the heavy gray clouds promised more. The night was dark and winter-silent, unnaturally so; even the animals prowling in the shadows seemed quiet as stone. The threat of snow tasted sharp in the air, imminent but refusing to fall.

There was no moon, but cold light filled a small circular clearing nestled in the rugged peaks. There lay a man sprawled in the center of the icy grass, his skin blue and his chest a mangled bloody red. His eyes, wide in terror, were frozen- literally frozen, solidified into ice in his skull. He was not dead, not quite, but his breaths coiling soft and misty into the frigid air were little more than candle smoke.

A figure crossed the clearing to the man’s prone body, ice thickening under its footsteps. The figure stopped by the man’s side and crouched there, placing a pale hand over his faltering heart. There was no visible change in the man, but there sounded a distant sort of _whoosh_ , like air entering a vacuum, and the man exhaled for the last time.

The figure stood and stepped over the body- for it was only a body, now- and passed through the clearing into the black woods, feet leaving no imprints in the frost. A few silent moments, and then something howled, long and chilling, to the hidden moon. And perhaps, beyond that, the low mournful blare of a horn.

It began to snow.


	2. Chapter 2

_December 26th. Sioux Falls, South Dakota._

Sam was still sleeping when Dean woke in the early morning and looked across the space between the beds in Bobby’s guestroom. The red numbers of the alarm clock told him it was shortly after six in the morning, so Sam probably would still be sleeping for a while. There had been a lot of whiskey in the egg nog last night, and Sam had always been a lightweight.

Dean decided not to wake him. He didn’t get a lot of sleep these days, and when he did he was plagued by nightmares and sometimes visions. But last night had been good, and if Sam was dreaming anything in his whiskey-nog induced coma, it didn’t cause him to stir.

Dean sat up and put his legs over the side of the bed, his toes curling against the cold floor. It was chilly in Bobby’s drafty old house, but looking at Sam, sprawled face-down in a tangle of long limbs, blankets, and the monstrosity of a Christmas sweater Dean had given him, Dean still felt warm.

The fuzzy rainbow socks Sam had cheekily given him were sitting on the nightstand. Dean pulled them on. They were warm, after all, and nobody would know if he wore them with his boots, anyway. He stood, threw the blanket from his bed over Sam and his exposed toes, and quietly padded out of the room.

Downstairs, Bobby was already in the kitchen, sitting at the table and reading a newspaper. He was, in fact, reading many newspapers spread out over the whole surface of the table. With a red marker in hand, he circled and underlined things here and there. Looking for a case, no doubt.

“Mornin’” Dean said, making a beeline for the coffee Bobby had already brewed. Bless him.

“Hmm,” Bobby hummed in gruff reply, turning the page of the newspaper. He considered the obituaries for a moment, then underlined something in red. “You’re up early.”

“Could say the same for you.” Dean poured himself a cup of joe, then turned and leaned against the counter. “You could use the extra beauty sleep, old man.”

“Shaddup,” Bobby grouched absentmindedly, setting the paper down and picking up another one.

Dean meandered to Bobby’s fridge and opened it, scanning for something to eat. There was a full carton of eggs, a roll of biscuits, and a pound of bacon. Moving to the cupboard, he found an unopened loaf of bread and a jar of strawberry jelly, his favorite. He smiled.

“Aw, Bobby, you didn’t have to buy special breakfast food just for us,” Dean teased.

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Bobby answered evenly without looking up. “I always keep my kitchen well stocked.”

Dean’s smile broadened. “Right, sure. And I suppose the ham, mashed potatoes, and three cartons of spiced egg nog last night were just lying around with your leftovers, huh?”

Perhaps there was the ghost of a smile in the corner of Bobby’s mouth. “The grocery store was having a Christmas sale. I ain’t gonna pass up that kinda bargain.”

Dean laughed. “Okay, Bobby. How do you like your eggs?”

The newspaper rustled as he turned the page. “Scrambled.”

“Man after my own heart,” Dean said, and got out the frying pan

The smell of eggs and sizzling bacon must have broken through Sam’s sugarplum dreams, because eventually Dean heard the floorboards above his head creak and within moments Sam wandered into the kitchen, still in the ugly sweater and his hair in a mussed poof about his head.

“The Sasquatch awakens,” Dean grinned. “Sleep well, Princess?”

“Neurgh,” Sam replied, and plopped into the seat opposite Bobby. He put his head down on his arms. "Someone please cut off my head."

"Nothing like a good Christmas hangover," Bobby said with humor.

Sam's voice was muffled in his arms. "Dean, next time you challenge me to a whiskey nog shot contest, remind me to punch you in the face."

"Man, I was just getting buzzed and you were already so far gone." Dean piled eggs and bacon onto a couple of plates and waited for the toast to pop. "You're so lightweight I'm embarrassed for you."

San turned his head and glared. "You know, the fact that you can barely even get drunk anymore isn't exactly something to be proud of, Dean."

"Shut up and eat your breakfast," Dean shot back, putting down a plate in front of Sam and taking a seat himself.

Bobby got up to make himself a plate and refill his coffee mug- the one, Dean noticed with amusement, he and Sam had given him last night. It said, in pink curling script, _World's Best Grandma._

Dean reached for one of the newspapers spread across the table. "Find anything weird, Bobby?"

“Couple of possibilities,” Bobby answered, returning to the table. “Maybe a poltergeist in Bigelow, and a possible Night Mare in Taylorsville. Mostly small things, low casualties. But here, in Darby, Montana, here’s something big.”

He pushed another newspaper to the center of the table, and Dean read the front page headline circled in red: _National Reserve Closed, Locals and Neighboring Regions Be Advised._

“There have been four deaths in those woods in the past few weeks, and several more disappearances,” Bobby continued. “They’ve also found an abnormal amount of animal carcasses out there, even large ones like wolves and bears.”

“So, what, maybe a wendigo?” Sam offered.

“Or a Black Dog,” Dean suggested.

“Could be,” Bobby said. “The reports weren’t specific about the cause of death, though, so it’s hard to say. Could even be the ghost of a mountain man.”

“Okay, well, I guess we could check it out. You up for it, Sam?”

“S’long as there’s no eggnog involved,” Sam declared around a mouthful of eggs.

“No promises,” Dean answered with a cheeky grin, ignoring Sam’s scathing scowl.

“Neither of you are going anywhere until you clean up the mess you made in my living room,” Bobby demanded.

Dean and Sam turned in unison to look through the doorway to the other room. A couple of candy canes were stuck to the couch, empty bottles rolled across the floor, and tinsel covered every flat surface. A few fat, dusty books lay open on Bobby’s desk, because most people, when they got drunk, liked to party hard and get drunker, but Sam- well, Sam liked to research the mythological and etymological roots of Santa Claus and then lecture Dean endlessly about his fascinatingly boring discoveries.

Bobby’s turntable was off to the side, a record still spinning in it silently.

Dean turned back to Bobby. “I still you can’t believe you actually own Bing Crosby’s Christmas album on vinyl.”

“Shut yer mouth,” Bobby muttered. “The man’s a classic.”

‡‡‡

Several hours later, when the sun had fully risen, the living room had been thoroughly de-Christmas-ized, and both Sam and Dean had changed into clean clothes (though Dean still secretly wore the rainbow socks), they bid farewell to Bobby in the foyer.

“Thanks for having us, Bobby,” Sam told him, all earnest wide eyes.

“Well, what kinda Scrooge would I be to turn away a couple of needy souls on Christmas?”

“You already look the part,” Dean smirked

Bobby smacked him over the head with his ballcap. “You oughta learn to respect your elders, boy. Someday you’ll be old.”

 _I doubt it,_ Dean thought, but didn’t give it voice. Bobby put a hand on the back of each of their necks, shaking them lightly. “Don’t be strangers, you hear? Let me know how the case goes.”

“Of course,” Sam answered, and Dean nodded.

“Good.” Bobby released them then, and ushered them out the door. “Now get outta my damn house, ya idjits!”

“Sure thing, Bobby.” Dean grinned, saw Sam smile out of the corner of his eye. They headed down Bobby’s drive to where the Impala was parked, sparkling with morning frost. Dean looked back to see Bobby still watching, and waved goodbye. Bobby raised a hand in return before going back inside.

When Dean turned the key in the ignition, the radio came to life and began blasting Led Zeppelin mid-song. In the passenger seat, Sam made an aborted noise somewhere between surprise and pain.

“How’s the head, Sammy?” Dean shouted.

“I hate you,” Sam groaned, leaning back against the seat and throwing an arm over his face.

Dean chuckled, but turned the music down, and a few minutes later found a soft rock station. Sam was asleep within minutes after that, and Dean let him doze.

It was good for Sam to unwind last night. Hell, it was good for both of them. To be honest, Dean had expected a lot more drinking and a lot less Bing Crosby, and if they hadn’t gone to Bobby’s (rather, if he hadn’t threatened them into showing up) then there probably would have been. Because it had been their first Christmas without Dad.

 _Not true,_ some uncharitable part of his mind piped up. _There was the Christmas you were twelve, the one you were fourteen, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-six… and when he_ was _there, he was brooding about Mom and drinking…_

 _Shut up,_ Dean told it. _You know what I meant._

Dean wasn’t thinking about Dad. He wasn’t thinking about the way he died, or his last words, or where he was now. He wasn’t thinking about any of it.

The sun was distant and cold in the early morning sky. Dean pointed the car towards Montana.

‡‡‡

With stops for gas and food, the drive to Darby took about fifteen hours. Dean pulled off the highway in the early hours of the morning into the parking lot of the local Budget Inn. After all these years on the road, Dean had an acute sense of the cheapest motel in the area, and this was it.

 

Dean parked in front of the check-in office and got out. On the other side of the car, Sam stood and stretched his arms above him, a long black cut-out against the sallow yellow of the Budget Inn sign. Beyond that, bright white stars crowned the hulking mountains. Dean’s gaze paused there for a moment, wondering what monstrous terror prowled among those peaks.

“Hey,” Sam’s low rumble brought his attention back. “Let’s go in and get a room.”

“Yeah.”

The front office was warm and bright, and soft country music played in the background. Behind the desk sat a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard and worn flannel. He smiled tiredly when they came through the door.

“Late night for you boys, huh?”

“Yep.” Dean pulled out his wallet. “Double room, please.”

Sam wandered over to the wall and looked at the pictures hanging there. The man behind the desk and a woman of about the same age featured in most of them, smiling in a landscape of mountains, trees, and wide blue sky.

“You spend a lot of time in the mountains?” Sam asked the owner.

“Oh yes, my wife and I love hiking up there,” he answered, counting Dean’s money and putting them down in the records. “We’ve got a national reserve here in Darby, and it’s especially beautiful in the fall.” He glanced up. “But if you boys are in town for a while, I wouldn’t recommend venturing out there.”

“How come?” Sam turned to face him, all inquisitive and curious as if he didn’t already know.

The owner looked uncertain. “Well, I don’t wanna scare you off, but people have been dying out there lately. The rangers think there’s some kind of wild animal on the rampage.”

Sam’s brow furrowed. “That sort of thing happen often?”

“No, no, not at all.” he handed Dean the room key. “Usually the animals keep to themselves. They’re harmless so long as you leave them alone.”

“You have any idea what kind of animal might be doing it?” Sam inquired.

“The authorities say bear, or maybe wolf, but-” he paused.

“But what?” Sam encouraged.

The man leaned over the desk, tone turned low and conspiratorial. “I grew up in these mountains, and I know that they’re as mysterious and unknowable as God himself. There’s all sorts of legends about the kind of things that hide in those woods. And I know I should say they’re just stories, but… you never know. Respect the mountains, boys, or they can ruin you.”

Sam came closer; his eyes were wide. “You really think so?”

He nodded earnestly. “Two rangers have died trying to take care of the problem, but I say, whatever’s out there, it’s best to just stay out of its way and let it run its course.”

“So, what,” Sam said, “You saying nobody should even try to stop it?”

“People _have_ tried, and look what happened to them.” His voice pitched lower. “I’m saying, I don’t think anyone _can_.”

Outside, a semi-truck’s horn blared down the highway, and the motel owner blinked, shaken out of his own spell. He straightened and fixed his smile back in place. “Well, anyway, you boys have a nice stay. And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask! My name’s Dell, by the way.”

“Thanks, Dell,” Dean said, opening the door and letting in a rush of cold air. “You have a nice night.”

Sam followed him out. They clattered up the rickety steps to their room on the second level. Dean fumbled the metal key like a shard of ice into the lock, and the door swung open. He stepped inside, flipped on the light, and froze.

“Oh, God,” he whispered in horror.

“What?” Sam peered over his shoulder, then relaxed and rolled his eyes. “Oh my God. Seriously, Dean?”

The room was decorated in eye-burning bright floral. Flowers, flowers everywhere: the bedspread, the walls, the artwork in picture frames, the carpet, in vases on all surfaces. One of those Febreze motion sensor sprays shot up a flowery mist as he moved further inside. Dean felt dizzy.

“I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“What, does it offend your hyper-masculine sensibilities?” Sam moved past him and threw his duffle bag on the bed farthest from the door.

“Should’ve known a girl like you would love this room,” Dean snarked.

“At least it doesn’t smell like cigarettes and pee,” Sam pointed out.

“I think I’d rather have that than this toxic eyesore.”

“Whatever, Dean.” Another eyeroll.

Dean relented and put his stuff on the other bed. “So, what do you think about the case? That conversation with Dell clue you in on anything?”

“Nothing specific. He’s obviously got some superstitions, but I’d say that’s probably pretty common in small mountain towns like this one. Figured we could probably get plenty of lore out of the locals tomorrow, see if the families know anything.” He opened his duffle and started getting ready for bed.

“I saw some brochures in the office for a local history museum,” Dean added. “There might be something useful there, too.”

“Sure. We’ll check it out tomorrow.”

They slipped into their beds and turned off the lights, plunging the floral-infested room into darkness. The blankets were clean and warm, and Dean sank into sleep easily; in the space between waking and dreaming, he couldn’t tell if was imagining the slight echoes of howling outside, so far away.


	3. Chapter 3

There were a total of three restaurants in Darby, and Deb’s was the only one open for breakfast. Sam and Dean discussed their game plan over huge plates of sausage and hash browns and bottomless mugs of coffee.

“You two just passing through?” the waitress, Deb herself, asked as she filled their cups. “We get a lot of travelers in here.”

“We’ll be here for a few days,” Dean answered, taking a drink.

Her eyes narrowed. “You boys aren’t hunters, are you?”

Dean choked on his coffee and spit it half over the table, bent over coughing. Sam, thankfully, kept his cool, and after shooting Dean a look that clearly telegraphed _you idiot_ , answered politely, “Sorry?”

Dean’s mind was racing to try and figure out how she had known and how to keep their cover when she answered, “Hunters. A few good shots with big egos have come through here looking for some big game. Apparently they think whatever animal is killing folks in the mountains will look good mounted on their walls.”

Oh. Dean had forgotten there was more than one type of hunter; nothing he and Sam did was for sport. What was it like, he wondered, to hunt something that wasn’t hunting you back?

“No, ma’am, not hunters,” Sam assured her, smoothly covering Dean’s blunder with a flash of dimples and his innocent puppy-dog eyes. “My brother and me, we’re just on a road trip.”

“Good. Not that it matters; the park is closed and the ranger won’t let anyone through. We’ve lost enough people.” Sam nodded in sorrowful agreement, and she moved along to another table.

“Sounds like we might have some competition,” Sam said. “Hopefully none of those hunters will be stupid enough to go out there alone. We’d better get this job done fast.”

Dean coughed again, and Sam’s mouth twitched up. He grabbed a handful of napkins and threw them across the table. “Geez, Dean, didn’t anyone ever teach you table manners?”

Dean flipped him off, eliciting a fully dimpled smile, and took a drink of water. “Get off your high horse little brother, you learned all _your_ manners from me.”

Sam shook his head, amused, and brought out the case file with the info on the victims. “So, anyway, about the case. The police department in this town is pretty small. They don’t keep the bodies here; they shipped them off to the coroner in Hamilton. But I hacked into the database and got the coroner’s reports, saved us the trip.”

“Atta geek boy.” Dean reached out for the file and Sam handed it over. He rifled through the pictures of the bodies, sterile and pale with gashed-open chests, and skimmed the reports themselves. “Todd Summers and Christian Howe were the first two found, and the rangers were Andrew Stafford and Roger Nielson. Causes of death: blood loss and exposure.”

“Look at the details, though,” Sam pointed out with his fork. “The claw wounds vary in size and severity. There are even some that appear to be made by human fingernails. Some of the victims had rope burns around their wrists and even necks, but no rope was found by the bodies. And a few of them had deep puncture wounds that were made by- coroner’s best guess- arrows. But again, no arrows found.”

Dean frowned, flipping through the file again. “What the hell kind of monster can do all that?”

Sam shook his head. “I have no idea. And then there are the disappearances, who haven’t been found yet..”

Dean turned to that part of the file and read aloud, “Jenna Phillips, and sisters Ella and Ivy Bissell.”

“Jenna was Christian’s girlfriend; they were camping the night he died and she went missing. The other two went out night-hiking together and never came back.”

“All girls,” Dean observed. “Looks like our monster has a soft spot for the ladies. You think it’s keeping them for itself? Sounds kinda dragon-ish.”

“Maybe. There’s plenty of caves up there for one to hide in. Doesn’t match the wounds, though.”

“Nothing matches the wounds, Sam,” Dean reminded him. “I mean, can you think of any one thing that does all this? We’ve got wendigo, black dog, vengeful spirit, and phantom archer all wrapped into one.”

Sam sighed in concession. “No. Unless they’re teaming up?”

It was a half-hearted suggestion at best, and they both knew it. “Monsters don’t work together,” Dean declared. “Not like this.”

Deb was making her way back towards their table, so Dean hurriedly shuffled the coroner and police reports back into the file. “We’ll split up today, see what we can find. Maybe there’s some obscure local legend that can explain all this.”

"I'll check out the museum, you can start interviewing the families. We'll meet up later and tackle the ranger station together."

"Sounds like a plan." Dean put away the file and shoveled the last of his food into his mouth as Deb came back around. Too fast; he suppressed another cough in his still-tender throat, almost choking again.

"You need a cough drop, hon?" Deb asked with genuine concern. Sam snickered.

‡‡‡

Dean had never enjoyed taking advantage of families in their times of grief, but it did usually make manipulating them a lot easier. All he had to do was flash his fake FBI badge, spin some tale about a routine check or the death of their loved one being part of a larger case, and they would tell him whatever he needed to know.

But it turned out there wasn’t much _to_ know. None of the victims had been acting any different in the days before their deaths, they hadn’t noticed anything weird, nothing had seemed off; they’d just gone out to the woods and hadn’t come back. And as for enemies- well, there weren’t any. Todd was a mellow middle-aged man, Christian was just an average teenager, and Jenna was his sweet, mild-mannered girlfriend. Dean checked the names off his list with increasing frustration, and called Sam on his way to the last house.

Sam picked up on the third ring. “Hey. Find anything?”

“Not much. There doesn’t seem to be any strong connections between the vics. I don’t think our monster’s killings are premeditated; looks like the vics just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anything at the museum?”

“It’s just a pioneer history museum, not the kind of stuff we’re looking for. But the curator gave me a few folk stories to start with and pointed me towards the library. You done with the families?”

“I’ve got one more still. Meet you at the library when I’m done.”

“Okay. See you then.”

Dean hung up as he pulled in front of the Bissell house, home of the most recent disappearances: eighteen-year-olds Ella and Ivy. He headed up the front walk and rang the doorbell. It was answered within a few moments by a dark-haired woman Dean assumed to be the girls’ mother. He glimpsed a sliver of hope in her eyes before she registered Dean standing there; perhaps she had thought her daughters had come back to her. But that hope soon receded and left her standing there weary and sad, like all the other families he had spoken with today, only twice over.

“Mrs. Bissell?” he formally inquired.

“Yes?” she answered warily, eyeing his suit.

He flipped his badge open. “Agent Clapton, FBI. I’m here regarding your daughters’ disappearances.”

Her eyebrows hitched up, her eyes went wide. “FBI? My, that does sound serious. Um, well, I suppose you better come in.”

Mrs. Bissell led him into a cozy living room and waved for him to take a seat on the couch. He did, and sat on something hard and plastic that began buzzing and lighting up, making sparkle sounds. He picked it up; it was a toy magic wand.

“Oh, I’m so sorry about that.” Mrs. Bissell took the wand from him then turned and shouted over her shoulder, “Emmie! Come get your toy!”

The distant patter of footsteps grew nearer and louder, and into the room rushed a little blonde girl, about five years old, wearing sparkly wings and a pink tutu. “You found my magic wand!” she squealed, taking it from her mother and waving it around. She stopped when she saw Dean, and stared at him with open curiosity. “Who are you?”

“He’s here about your sisters, Emmie,” Mrs. Bissell said gently. “Now go play.”

Little Emmie ignored her mom and told Dean in a solemn whisper, “Ella and Ivy went to the woods and didn’t come home and they’re still not home and Mommy is sad a lot and cries sometimes, but I think they just went to go be fairy princesses and so she should be happy because now we have princesses in the family!” She turned and tapped her mom on the head with the wand; Mrs. Bissell looked like she was torn between being embarrassed, amused, and terribly sad.

“Emmie-” she began, but was interrupted by another voice.

“Don’t be stupid, Em.” Dean turned towards the doorway to the hall and saw another kid there, a boy maybe about nine or ten years old. “It’s obvious the Megrimum got them.”

“Josh!” Mrs. Bissell said sharply.

“No it didn’t!” Emmie protested.

“The Megrimum?” Dean asked.

Josh met his eyes, face stony and dull. “Yeah. The howling monster on the mountain. It comes out at night and eats people in the woods. It really likes girls. It doesn't leave any parts of them behind."

" _Josh,"_ Mrs. Bissell said again, horrified.

“What?” Josh said, voice monotone. “Everyone knows it.”

Emmie burst into tears. Her mom picked her up and hushed her, shooting daggers at Josh and then giving Dean an apologetic look. She opened her mouth to say something, but then there was the sound of the front door opening and another young man entered from the hallway. He looked to be about twenty or so. He paused, taking in the scene.

"What's going on?"

"Blake, please just take your brother and sister and leave us, okay?"

Mrs. Bissell put Emmie back down, and Blake ushered the two children out of the room. She turned back to Dean and swept a hand over her face and through her hair.

"I'm sorry. It's been difficult around here since the girls disappeared."

Dean wished Sam was there. He was always much better at comforting the grieving. "I understand. Just, anything you can tell me might help bring your daughters home."

She nodded, sniffed. "What do you need to know?"

‡‡‡

Dean left the Bissell house with little more than he went in with. There was nothing more suspicious or odd about the sisters than there was about any of the other victims. However, he had one sliver of a lead: the Megrimum Josh had mentioned. He’d never heard that name before, so the chances were good that it was a local thing, possibly a unique monster or a different name given to a broader species. If that was so, Sam had probably found something about it in the library.

Dean was feeling optimistic as he headed back down the Bissell’s drive. He was almost to the car when he heard the trotting of footsteps behind him and a voice calling out.

“Hey, wait!” Dean turned. It was Blake, the oldest Bissell child, emerging from the open garage and looking somewhat frantic. “You’re the guy looking for my sisters, right?”

“I’m part of the investigation, yes,” Dean replied.

Blake got closer, and Dean caught a whiff of the familiar scent of gun oil off of him. “Have you found anything? Do you have any sort of idea where they might be?”

Dean hesitated. “The investigation is… ongoing.”

Blake deflated. “So that’s a no, then.”

Dean glanced over Blake’s shoulder, into the garage. There was a workbench set up inside; on it lay several hunting rifles in various stages of cleaning. Dean raised an eyebrow. “Were you planning a little search of your own?”

Blake’s eyes flickered away, evasively. “Maybe. Seems like no one else is going to do it.”

Dean leveled his gaze. “You were going alone?” Blake shrugged, which Dean knew just meant yes. “You realize how incredibly stupid that is, right.”

He could practically _see_ Blake’s hackles rise. “Hey, whatever’s killing people is just gonna keep doing it unless someone puts it down, and it seems to me that everyone’s too scared to do it. I’m a good shot, I’ve camped in these mountains my whole life, and I know my way around a wilderness. And my sisters are out there. If no one else will do it, I will.”

“You know, well-trained rangers have died going up against that thing,” Dean pointed out none too gently. “What makes you think you can do any better?”

Blake set his jaw in a way that reminded Dean of a stubborn teenage Sam, and whoa, that was a scary thought. “I have to try.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Does your mom know about this?”

Blake’s lip curled. “What, you gonna tell on me?”

“If it keeps you from getting yourself killed, yeah.” Dean started back towards the front door.

Blake reached for his arm. “Okay, wait, wait up. Just- just listen, okay?”

Dean stopped; there was real desperation in the kid’s voice. Blake took a steadying breath, and when he spoke, his voice was low and earnest.

“Look. Ella and Ivy and I have always been really close, okay? Our mom divorced our dad when we were little, and it was bad, and then she went through a few rough, kinda abusive relationships before she got remarried and had Josh and Emmie and she’s happy now and I’m glad, I really am, but for a while there, when it really mattered, all my sisters and I had was each other. And now they’re gone, and it’s been days, and I know how cruel the mountains can be, and how every hour decreases their chances of being found alive or, hell, being found at all. And I can’t just sit around any longer; if they’re still alive, they probably won’t last another night.” His eyes went soft and pleading. “Please. They’re my little sisters.”

Dean hesitated, but he knew already that he was going to give in. Damn his soft spot for protective older brothers. He blew out a breath and Blake, sensing victory, let go of his arm.

“Do you even know what it is?” Dean asked quietly.

Blake swallowed. “Do you?”

“Your brother said something about a Megrimum…”

Blake shook his head. “That’s just a story. A name for the wolves and the wind in the caves. It’s easy to explain, not like-”

Dean waited, but Blake looked unsure. “Not like what?” he prompted.

“There’s always been howling in the mountains, but lately, ever since the first killings began… I’ve heard, like, _horns_.”

Dean’s forehead creased. “Horns?”

“Yeah. You know, like, hunting horns? Trumpets? Like in medieval movies?” He bit his lip. “You tell me, Agent, what kind of animal makes a sound like that?”

“Nothing natural,” he answered with grim honesty. Blake nodded and looked away. “You have no idea what you’re gonna find out there. Doesn’t that scare you?”

Blake sucked in a breath and glanced at his feet. “Yeah. A lot. But. I’m more scared for my sisters.”

Dean nodded, his respect for the kid ratcheting up. He knew then that there was no way he would be able to talk Blake out of going. But there was no way he would let a civilian and a kid (even if he was only a few years younger than Sam) head straight into danger alone.

“Listen, Blake, I know I can’t stop you, but at least let me and my partner come with you. We’ll all have a better chance at surviving that way.”

Blake looked up at him, surprised but grateful, relief replacing a bit of the fear in his eyes. “Okay.”

“Good. Meet us by the reserve before sundown; we’ll have to sneak in.”

Blake agreed, and Dean headed back to the Impala and drove away. He went towards the library, shot Sam a text letting him know he was on his way, and began hurriedly assembling an explanation for Sam as to why their deadline for solving the case had suddenly become mere hours away. He could only hope that Sam had gotten the research they needed.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean expected Sam to be waiting for him when he arrived at the library. What he didn’t expect to find was his brother sitting practically in the middle of the parking lot with a dog half on top of him, licking his face while Sam smiled and enthusiastically ran his hands through the dog’s fur.

Dean parked and got out of the car, momentarily jolted out of his sense of urgency by the unexpected sight. He walked over to where Sam sat and looked around to make sure Sam wasn’t about to get hit by any cars because, you know, he was sitting in the middle of the parking lot like an idiot.

“Sam.”

“Yeah?” Sam didn’t even bother to look up; the dog was still trying to slobber all over him. It looked like a golden retriever, extra fluffy and friendly.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Sam did look up then, smiling sunshine-bright, and Dean almost had to remind himself to be annoyed because damn, Sam hardly ever smiled like that anymore.

“Dean, this is Clark,” Sam announced, tugging on the dog’s jangling collar. “He was outside the museum when I left, and he followed me on the walk here.”

“Sam,” Dean said again. “Please tell me you haven’t been spending all this time petting the dog.”

Sam spared him a disdainful glare. “Of course not. I just came out of the library a minute ago; he was still here.”

The dog- Clark- rolled over and presented his belly to be rubbed. Sam happily obliged, and Dean knew he was in immediate danger of losing him to the bottomless abyss of puppy-induced bliss.

“Sam. We’ve gotta get going.”

“In a minute, Dean.”

“Sam. He’s not your dog.”

“Let me live my life, Dean.”

“ _Sam._ We’re not keeping the dog.”

That earned him an eyeroll. “Obviously not. He’s got a collar. Just, why don’t you pet him for a little bit? It’s supposed to be therapeutic. You could use some stress relief.”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I pet the damn dog, will you walk away?”

Sam sighed heavily, sounding very put-upon. “Fine, Dean.”

Dean crouched and ran his fingers through Clark’s fur, which, wow, was actually really soft. Clark rolled back to his feet and pounced on Dean. nearly knocking him over, attacking his face with slobbery dog tongue. He leaned away and held Clark by the collar, but still felt himself smile. “Get offa me, you brute.”

Clark backed off and Dean stood, giving him a pat on the head. “C’mon Sam, we really gotta go.”

“Okay.” Sam ran his hands down Clark’s sides one more time, and briefly pressed his face to his fur. “Bye, Clark.”

The dog gave Sam one more doggy kiss across the face, then turned and trotted back in the direction of the museum, tongue lolling and tail wagging.

“Good dog,” Sam murmured, and followed Dean back to the car.

“I swear,” Dean muttered. “It’s like when you were eight and you dragged in every mangy mutt off the streets. You’re lucky you never got fleas or rabies or something.”

“Whatever, Dean. Dogs love me.” Sam slid into the passenger seat. “So. We heading to the ranger station now?”

“Yeah, about that…” Dean started the car and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “We don’t have time. We only have a few hours to figure this out; we’re going out to the woods tonight.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Dean, we don’t even know yet what we’re up against!”

“Yeah, well, that’s why I was hoping you had worked your geek boy research magic,” Dean replied, turning the car towards the motel.

“I found some stuff, but why the sudden rush?”

“Funny story, actually” Dean began, ignoring Sam’s muttered _oh no_ , “I went to interview the family of the two sisters that went missing, and it turns out they have an older brother, who knew? His name’s Blake, and he’s pretty gung-ho about going out and finding his sisters   himself, and I obviously couldn’t let him go alone, so I told him we’d go with him tonight.”

Sam was incredulous. “You didn’t stop him?”

“What was I supposed to do, Sam? I couldn’t very well kidnap him and tie him up in the trunk, could I?”

Sam pressed his fingertips into his closed eyelids. “Okay, okay fine. We’ll just have to improvise a little. We’ve done more with less, right?”

“Yeah. So tell me, whaddaya got?”

Sam pulled out a collection of papers clipped together, his research and notes. “There are some potential deaths that might fit the billing for a spirit; people get lost in the mountains all the time, and a lot of them, especially back in the days of the early settlers out west, were never found. I’ve got a list of names of missing people from this town going back to the 1800s, but I have no idea how we’re going to find and burn their bodies.”

“Okay. Did you find anything about a monster called ‘the Megrimum’?”

Sam flipped through the papers, brow tight in concentration. “Megrimum… I think there was a little snippet somewhere…”

“One of the kids said it’s like a howling thing in the mountain,” Dean prompted.

“Here it is.” Sam pulled out the paper he needed, his eyes skimming over it. “Howling thing in the mountain… that pretty much covers it. It just howls. No record of it ever having eaten anyone, but it doesn’t say that it _wouldn’t,_ given the chance. But apparently scientific excursions have proven the Megrimum to be just the wind roaring through holes in the rocks.”

“It could still exist, though,” Dean pointed out.

“Yeah, but Dean, I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s shaping up to be a gathering of spirits.”

Dean glanced at him. “A gathering? But ghosts don’t team up unless-”

“Unless someone’s summoning them,” Sam finished. “And if that’s the case, we don’t need to worry about finding the bones at all, just the summoner.”

“But none of the victims had a common enemy. Hell, none of the victims had _any_ enemies.”

“Doesn’t matter. We don’t, strictly speaking, need to know who it is beforehand. The summoner has to be present to sic the ghosts on someone, so if we’re going out tonight, if we find the spirits- or if they find us-, we’ll find the summoner.”

They arrived at the motel; Dean pulled in and parked. “Okay. So I guess we’ll just load up on salt and iron and see what we can see.”

Sam shrugged. “That’s about all we can do with so little time.”

They went back to their floral explosion of a room and spent the rest of the time cleaning and sharpening their weapons; they loaded their guns with bullets of iron and rock salt, and some silver, just in case. Dean slipped an iron knife into his jacket and a silver one into his boot; Sam did the same. They did a bit more research and tried to theorize about who the summoner might be, but without more information they had nothing solid. Not long before sundown, they climbed back in the Impala and drove to the Bitterroot National Forest reserve.

Blake was already there, leaning against his car with his hands in the pockets of his coat.

“That the kid?” Sam asked. Dean nodded his confirmation and parked.

They emerged from the Impala into the cold mountain air, and Blake pushed off the side of his car to meet them.

“Hey, Agent, uh…”

“You know what? Just call me Dean.” Dean gestured a hand. “And this is Sam.”

Sam smiled reassuringly. “Hi. You’re Blake Bissell?”

“Yeah.” Blake shifted and pushed his dark hair out of his face, clearly uncomfortable with the pleasantries. “Can we get going? It’ll be dark soon.”

“Sure thing,” Dean said, and moved to open the trunk.

Blake retrieved his hunting rifle from his car, and wandered over to watch them prepare. Dean handed Sam his guns, and stuck his own pistol into his waistband at the small of his back; the metal burned cold against his skin. Sam checked the magazine of his own gun, and glanced at Blake.

“What are your bullets made of?” he asked.

Blake tore his eyes away from the contents of the Impala’s trunk: the guns and knives, the shovels and gasoline, the wooden stakes and crosses, the dreamcatchers and rosaries. “Uh, lead coated in copper. Standard.”

“Those won’t do any good,” Sam told him. He handed him a box of rock salt and iron bullets. “Use these instead.”

Blake took the box, eyes flickering between Sam, Dean, and the trunk. “You guys aren’t actually FBI, are you.”

It wasn’t really a question, and neither Sam nor Dean bothered to answer. Blake stared at them for another few moments, then shook his head and began switching out his bullets.

Sam came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Dean, blocking Blake out and pitching his voice low. “I don’t like this, Dean. We’re practically going in blind, here. And with a civilian? When has that ever ended well?”

“I know, man,” Dean answered, just as quiet. “But he was gonna go anyway, with or without us. Besides, there’s still three girls out there somewhere; we might still be able to save them.”

“I have a bad feeling,” Sam admitted, and that got Dean’s attention.

“You mean bad feeling like about-to-face-unknown-deadly-danger bad feeling or bad feeling like…” -Dean waved a hand by his head- “your psychic thing?”

Sam shook his head. “I can’t tell. Just, like, a gut feeling, you know?”

“Okay.” Dean stepped back and slammed the trunk closed. He pressed a hand to the back of Sam’s shoulder, brief and reassuring. “Well, you let me know if your spidey-sense starts really tingling, okay?”

Sam nodded, and they turned back to Blake. Sam unfolded a map of the forest on the Impala’s back hood, marked with red X’s in various spots. Blake moved in closer to see.

“The X’s are where they found the bodies,” Sam explained. He pointed to one. “That’s where Todd Summers was found; it’s the closest site to here.” He looked at Blake. “You know how to get there?”

Blake bent over the map, inspecting it closely. “Yeah. It’s a mile or two out from Campground A, where Todd was probably camping. There’s a trail that leads nearby, though we’d have to go off of it a bit.” He leaned back and looked at the sky. “It’s kind of a trek, but if we hurry we could make it before it gets full dark.”

“Alright.” Sam re-folded the map and stuck it in his coat pocket. “Let’s get to it.”

Ignoring the signs insisting that the park was closed and climbing over the locked entrance gates, they started on their way. The trail wound crooked and steep into the mountain woods, and even though Dean was in the habit of viewing his surroundings on a hunt completely objectively, he had to admit it was kind of pretty, in a cold, formidable sort of way. It had snowed recently; back in town Dean had seen the drifts piled up in gray slushy mounds on the sides of the roads and turned dirty under footprints on the sidewalks. But here, the snow remained largely undisturbed and clean, a white tapestry draped over the earth. The sky was mostly clouded over, but Dean could still see the sun slowly drawing towards the horizon and injecting the sky with color.

Blake led the way, and Sam walked with him; before long they began making hushed conversation. Dean followed behind them, staying vigilantly close, pretending not to listen in while really not making all that much of an effort not to. But hey, it was a quiet forest, so it wasn’t like he was really making all that much of an effort to do the opposite. Anyway, they weren’t talking about anything important really, just, you know, geeky Sam stuff.

“So,” Sam was saying, “You go to Montana State University? What’s your major?”

“Well, I’m in pre-med right now, but I’m applying for full-fledged medical school.”

“Med school? Wow. I had a few friends who were pre-med, heard it was crazy difficult. I salute you, though, man, that’s really cool.”

Blake looked down, smiling and embarrassed but obviously proud. “Thanks. It is a lot of work, but it’s not so bad when you really care about what you’re doing, you know? What about you, where did you go, what did you do?”

Dean could see Sam’s shoulders tense just the smallest bit. “Oh, uh, I spent a few years in the pre-law program at Stanford.”

“ _Stanford?_ Wow, I hear they only let the crazy-smart people in there. And pre-law? Geez, you a genius or something? That’s amazing.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to smile at the ground with embarrassed pride, but Dean could still see the tension in his shoulders. He didn’t know how to feel.

A year ago, back before the yellow-eyed demon started throwing its weight around, before Dad died, before Dean became a grieving mess because of it, before Sam got sucked in too deep, Sam had wanted to go back to school. He hadn’t accepted that this was their life, and he’d wanted Dean to let him go. Again. Dean hadn’t even been close to ready to do that. But Sam hadn’t so much as mentioned Stanford since Dad died, and it seemed like he had given up on that particular dream. Dean was glad to have Sam with him- God knew Sam was all that held him together, some days- but he couldn’t help but feel that in losing Stanford, Sam had lost a fundamental part of himself, and it had taken a toll on him. Dean hoped to put that school-boy light back in Sam’s eyes, someday.

“I’m on winter break right now,” Blake told Sam. He huffed a laugh, humorless and bitter. “It hasn’t exactly been a very Merry Christmas.”

There was silence for a moment, then Sam spoke with genuine compassion. “We’ll find your sisters, Blake.”

“Yeah,” Blake said with forced confidence. “I know.”

Dean knew that people always told themselves lies when they were afraid.

At a certain point, Blake took them off the path, and they went stomping like giants through underbrush and snow. The deeper into the woods they went, the more Dean noticed the bodies of animals strewn bloody across the otherwise unblemished snow. Some seemed relatively clean, single fatal wounds through their eyes or heart. Others were messy, guts and body parts smeared across the forest’s white canvas. The quiet seemed to have a much heavier quality here, weighing on Dean like a tangible thing. The air tasted ominous; Dean’s spine prickled.

By the time they finally reached the site of Todd Summers’ death, the sun had fully disappeared beneath the lip of the earth. There was still some color illuminating the sky, but it was fading fast.

The clearing where they had found Todd’s body looked almost perfectly round. Sam strode out of the trees and stopped in the center of the clearing.

“This is where his body was,” he announced. He looked around, turning in a circle and searching for clues.

Dean stayed out of the clearing, observing it from a broad point of view. Blake hovered uncertainly behind him. Looking down, Dean saw a splash of color at the edge of the treeline. He crouched and brushed some snow away, revealing a line of bright blue mushrooms. He frowned.

“Hey, Sam, do mushrooms usually grow in winter?”

“Depends on the mushroom,” Sam answered. He finished his rotation, and tilted his head back to look at the sky. Nearly all of the color had gone out it by now.

“How about blue ones?”

Sam didn’t answer, but Blake crouched next to him and informed him, “I’ve never seen that kind of mushroom before, and I spend a lot of time in these mountains.”

A dreadful suspicion started brewing in the pit of Dean’s stomach. He stood up and peered at the edges of the clearing, all the way around. Spots of blue dotted the blank parchment of snow, forming a ring round the clearing. A perfect circle of unnatural mushrooms. And Sam was standing right in the middle of it.

 _Shit._ Realization hit Dean like a demon in a semi-truck; his blood ran suddenly as cold as the ice in his boots.

“Sam,” he called, urgent but firmly calm despite the emerging panic flooding his veins. “Step out of the circle.”

Sam didn’t move or give any indication that he had heard Dean; he was still standing there staring at the sky. His mouth was slightly open and his eyes were wide. Dean could see his chest heaving. Everything within the clearing seemed much brighter, all of a sudden. The snow, the very air, even Sam himself seemed to give off a gentle glow that was growing more radiant with every second.

“ _Sam,_ ” he barked, starting forward but not daring to cross into the ring. “Get out of the circle _now!_ ”

Sam shivered. The last remnants of light faded from the sky and moonlight pierced through the clouds, too dazzling to be natural.

“ _Sammy!_ ” Dean shouted once more in desperation.

Sam did turn to him then, his movements leaving luminescent trails in the air. His eyes reflected stars, even though the clouds hung low overhead. There was something decidedly unearthly about him, and it sent chills skittering across Dean’s skin. Sam opened his mouth, and when he spoke even his voice carried a sonorous weight it never had before.

“They’re coming,” he said simply, and Dean shuddered.

The trumpeting blare of a horn echoed over the mountain.


	5. Chapter 5

“What’s going on?” Blake’s voice was shaky and scared, but Dean afforded him no attention.

Sam’s gaze was directed out over the trees. Dean could see no disturbance in the snow or the trees, but the sound of the horn was soon followed by the howling of hounds and the clopping of horse hooves drawing ever closer. Nothing Dean said or did got Sam’s attention, but he hadn’t really expected it to. Sam was inside the circle; it was too late. But whatever was coming, Sam wasn’t going to face it alone.

“Stay where you are,” he growled at Blake, and stepped over the ring of mushrooms into the clearing.

‡‡‡

In Dad’s journal, every entry about his cases and the monsters he faced was meticulously detailed. What the monster did, where it was found, what it looked like, how to kill it- Dad recorded all of it, and it had saved his sons’ bacon more than once. But somewhere in the middle, on some insignificant date, there was one page that had none of those details. It had nothing, in fact, but a single line scrawled in big bold print and underlined. Twice.

_Never, ever step inside a fai_ _r_ _y_ _r_ _ing._

‡‡‡

The moment Dean entered the circle, everything changed. The clearing seemed exponentially larger from the inside, and the colors, though not any different in their shades, seemed… deeper, somehow. More intense, more vibrant. Looking back, Dean could still see Bake outside the ring, but he looked dull and faded, not a solid part of reality, a gray watermark against the trees. The blue toadstools glowed, and Dean could see little lights floating at the edges of the clearing.

Dean looked up to see what had so captivated Sam’s attention, and his breath caught. There were no clouds in the sky, and the stars were far more numerous than Dean had ever seen, even out in the country on the clearest of nights. Comets whipped across the dark dome in flashes of color, and the moon was enormous, too big to be real.

Otherworldly, was the word; they were inside the fairy ring now, and this was not the human realm. This was Faerie.

Dean rushed to Sam and grabbed his arm. “Sam, c’mon, we gotta go.”

Sam looked at him, still seeming a little star-drunk. _Enchanted_ , Dean knew, and his heart pounded. “It’s too late, Dean, we couldn’t get out now even if we tried.”

The sounds of hooves and hounds pounded close, and Dean watched with a horrified fascination as the trees in front of them parted to either side, branching over top like a tunnel. Through this archway of trees a whole cavalry of unearthly steeds emerged, some pale and sleek as starlight, some dark and lithe as night. Their riders were Fae, tall men and women who struck Dean as stars personified, beautiful and distant and cold. Dean saw huge white wolves prowling amongst the horses, and spirits flickering in and out of being like strobe lights, and deformed monster-creatures that bared bloody teeth, and even people who looked entirely human except for their pitch black eyes.

The entourage of creatures flooded into the ring and spread all around the edges of the circle, surrounding them. Dean tightened his grip on Sam’s sleeve and pulled out his iron-loaded handgun; they were in some serious trouble here.

The last to enter the circle were a man and woman; their horses literally shone, the man’s pure white and the woman’s deepest obsidian. Dean spotted crowns like ice shards glittering in their hair, and knew they were the ones in charge.

The trees closed up again and silence fell over the clearing. Dean shook Sam’s sleeve a bit and his brother snapped to his senses, enough to draw out his iron knife with a quick sharp movement.

Immediately, archers all around the circle drew their bows, arrows notched and pointed straight at Sam. Dean’s shoulders went tight, preparing for a fight, but the crowned man, the King, lifted a hand and the archers slowly lowered their bows.

 _Well,_ Dean thought, recalling the strange coroner reports. _That would explain the arrow wounds._

The King turned his head slightly, speaking to the woman beside him but not taking his eyes from Sam and Dean.

“Well, my Queen, it seems more mortals have come upon our Stalking Grounds.”

The Queen smiled without warmth. “How foolish of them. But fortunate for us, I should say.”

“Indeed.”

Dean didn’t like the sound of that. He cleared his throat and asked hoarsely, “Who are you?”

The King arched a regal eyebrow. “Addressing the King without permission? You are quite a daring mortal, aren’t you?”

Dean bit his tongue, cursing himself. You had to be careful with the fair folk. You had to dance on a razor’s edge.

“Fortunately for you, human, we happen to admire bravery,” the Queen said. She urged her midnight steed into a trot, and circled around the ring, her dark hair flowing behind her like a mourning veil. “We are the Winter Court, boy. And we are Hunting.”

Sam sucked in a breath. “Unseelie Faeries, Dean,” he murmured. “A Wild Hunt.”

Dean heard the capital letters in every word, and he knew they were screwed. The Unseelie Fae were the dark side of the Faerie Realm. Dean had never encountered them before, but there was plenty of lore and legends about them. The Wild Hunt was a far rarer phenomenon, but it explained why the ghosts, monsters and demons were there among the Fae. Wild Hunts attracted every evil thing they came across, and killed anything that got in their way.

They hadn't even considered faeries as the potential culprit in this case, and they were paying for it now. Stupid, stupid. At least they still had the salt and iron; incidentally, the same things that repelled ghosts were poisonous to the Fae.

Faeries were always fond of a quick and careful tongue; maybe Dean could talk their way out of this.

"What do you want with us?"

The King spoke as the Queen returned to her place beside him. "We would have desired nothing of you, had you not entered upon these Grounds. However, as you have, we offer you a choice."

That was never a good thing; choices offered by Fae were nearly always a matter of deciding the lesser of two evils. Dean swallowed. "What sort of choice?"

"The same choice we have offered all the humans who came here before you. You may eat of our food and join our court, or you shall be part of the Tiend."

Tiend, Tiend... Dean had seen it in the lore before, but its significance was beyond him now.

"Sam," he whispered over his shoulder. "Tiend?"

Sam didn't answer, and Dean chanced a look back at him. He was gazing beyond Dean, at the ethereal faeries regarding them without feeling, at the demons grinning at them with shark teeth.

"Sam?" He said again.

Sam's eyes shifted to meet his; they were unreadable. "Every seven years," he said, hushed, "The Unseelie Court owes a Tiend of seven souls to Hell."

 _Oh._ Dean swallowed hard, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach.

“Your brother is correct,” the King said. “We have already taken four men’s souls; over half of our debt.”

Christian and Todd, rangers Andrew and Roger. But that still left…

“And the women’s souls?” Dean asked, careful but with deepening dread. What could he possibly tell Blake if his sisters were not only gone, but in _Hell_ , of all places. Jesus.

“The women,” the Queen replied. “Have become my handmaidens.”

She gestured to the three Fae women astride their horses beside her. Dean recognized them for the first time; though far more elven and pale than they had ever been in the human realm, their faces were undeniably the same ones he had seen in the police reports, and the pictures in their families' homes. Jenna, and the Bissell twins-

"Ella! Ivy!"

Dean's head snapped around to see Blake running towards his sisters, who only gazed at him with a sort of distant derision. Dean caught his arm as he tried to sprint past, bringing him to an abrupt halt.

"Blake," he hissed. "You idiot, I told you to stay outside the circle!"

Blake ignored him, staring at his sisters- or what used to be his sisters, anyway. He finally seemed to realize that something was off when his repeated calls drew no reaction from either of them. His tone curdled from joy to desperation, then boiled fast through anger and chilled quickly into fearful confusion.

"What's wrong with them?" he demanded hoarsely, looking at Dean with imploring eyes.

"Just shut up, will you?" Dean muttered without patience. "We're all in over our heads here."

Blake shut up. At least the kid had _some_ sense.

"We thought we might have to offer them up as well," the Queen continued as if there had been no interruption. "We are nearing the end of the Hunt, you see, and still three souls short of the Tiend." Another cruel smile. "But with you three, I need not sacrifice my handmaidens."

"Patience, my Queen," said the King. "They have not yet made their choice. So what will it be, mortals?"

He snapped his fingers, and a young faerie page stepped forward with a heavy silver platter. He came closer, and the tray was suddenly laden with three glass goblets, intricate and sparkling in the moonlight.

The chalices filled with dark red wine. Even from a few feet away, Dean could smell the strong, intoxicating scent of it, sweet as sun-ripened grapes. Dean was more of a beer kind of man, but his taste buds watered and he just _knew_ that this wine would be the best thing he ever tasted.

He also knew that if he drank so much as a single drop, he would never leave the Faerie realm again.

"Will you join the Winter Court of Faerie?" the King asked.

Dean knew about the Winter Court; all the lore portrayed them as malicious and cold, embittered by endless winter, forever outcast and unsatisfied. An eternity painted in black and blue.

"Hell no," Dean snarled in answer.

"Dean, hang on a second," Sam spoke up.

Dean stared at him. "What do you mean, 'hang on a second'? No is the only answer here, Sam!"

"But, Dean, would it really be so bad?"

" _Sam._ You know the stories as well as I do."

"Would be better than Hell," he said. Still with that strange dazed look, he reached out for one of the wine glasses.

Dean knocked his hand away with a sharp ' _Hey!'_ The glass in question fell to the ground and shattered, spilling wine blood-red across the pristine snow.

Dean's anger soured into prickling worry, which sounded close enough to anger in his voice. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

The Queen laughed, high and keen. It rippled around the circle, a cacophony of shrill chittering that scraped chills down Dean's spine.

She slipped off her horse easy as flowing water and made her way without footprints to stand before them. Blake shrank back as she approached, but Dean belied his instincts and stood his ground. And Sam... Sam just kept _staring._ Dean shifted the angle of his body slightly, putting himself between Sam and the path of the Queen.

"In the days of Old, the first of Faeries, now our Elders, were born of a forbidden Union: that of an angel and a demon. The blood of both runs in all faerie veins; in mine, in the Kings', in Seelies and Unseelies alike."

She neatly sidestepped Dean and stood before Sam; she raised a hand and touched his face, gently. Dean's knuckles whitened around his gun, but he didn't dare strike out. His body was as tense as the faerie archers' bowstrings.

"A demon has laid claim on you, Samuel Winchester. It would not be so far a step for you to become Fae." Her hand moved down to Sam's wrist; his grip loosened, and the iron knife tumbled into the snow. She leaned in close, her lips hovering mere centimeters from Sam's. "You have more in common with us than you know."

Sam let out a shuddery breath. It sounded too much like a concession.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean snapped.

The Queen turned her head towards him. "That is not my truth to reveal."

"Of course not," Dean said bitterly. "You Fae only talk in riddles, don't you?"

"It would be wise of you to watch your tone," she said in cool reply, and snapped her fingers.

The gun in Dean's hand grew suddenly, shockingly cold, to the point of burning. He tried to hold on for as long as possible, but at a certain point he couldn't help but let go. It tumbled to the snow near Sam’s knife.

The Queen stepped away, and Sam stepped forward, as if to follow her. Dean grabbed a handful of his jacket to stop him, and held on.

"No one has any claim on him," he growled. "Not any demon, and certainly not you. And if anyone _did_ have a claim, it would be me. He's _my_ brother, and we're not going anywhere with you."

He half-expected Sam to protest, but his brother stayed blessedly silent.

"Very well," the King said as the Queen returned to her horse and mounted once again. "And you, boy?" He looked at Blake. "What do you choose?"

"I- uh-" Blake's head went back and forth between the King and Queen, Sam and Dean, and his faerie sisters.

"Blake," Dean said, soft in volume but hard in tone. Not a yes, not a no, just a reminder; these creatures had killed people, and even if his sisters were among them, they weren't his sisters anymore.

Blake considered for a moment more, and when he answered, it wasn't confident, but it was definite.

"No."

The King nodded, and the Fae boy with the silver tray retreated. Sam's cup still lay in shards at his feet.

"The choice has been made," the King announced, his voice taking on a more sonorous quality. Beside him, another faerie raised an enormous ram's horn to his lips.

The King raised a regal hand, his pure white horse rearing up beneath him. "The Hunt begins!"

The circle of creatures roared in approval, Dean grasped Sam's jacket tighter, and the horn blared long and ear splittingly loud.

The sound vibrated in Dean's skull and pierced straight on through to his brain. With a painful throb, his vision went black.


	6. Chapter 6

When Dean awoke, it couldn’t have been long after he had lost consciousness; he could still hear the horn blowing, but it seemed to be a great distance away. Looking around, he realized that he was no longer in the clearing, but in another thickly wooded part of the forest. And he was alone.

The horn faded, and with one last roar of the Wild Hunt party, everything went silent once again. Dean sat up, senses on high alert, ignoring the snow seeping wet and cold through his jeans.

“Sam?” he called. It sounded incredibly loud, and he winced. “Sammy?” he said a little quieter. “Blake?”

No answer. Dean stood and searched the immediate area for traces of either of them, but found none. They were probably in the same sort of situation, isolated in some far off part of the forest. The faeries had released their prey, and now they were on the prowl.

Dean quickly checked the hiding places on his person for his various knives, and found himself weaponless. He figured it was safe to assume that Sam and Blake were similarly disarmed. His phone was gone too, so there would be no calling his brother.

Dean took a deep breath and tried not to panic. Okay. He was trained for stuff like this; John Winchester had always been a fan of preparing for the worst-case scenario. He could handle himself.

Sam could too, he reminded himself. No need to worry. Even if Sam was weirdly vulnerable to the faerie magic and strangely caught under their spell, even if he didn't seem fully in his right mind in this realm. He'd be fine, surely.

Blake, maybe not so much. But one thing at a time.

Find a weapon. Find Sam. Find Blake. Find a way out of this mess. Find a goddamn _cheeseburger._

One thing at a time.

Dean had no idea where he was; there were no distinguishing landmarks to give him a hint of how far way he was from a trail, or the faerie circle, or a way out of the woods. He had no way of telling direction, because he hadn't brought a compass, and when he looked up to use the stars to navigate, he was greeted by the sight of the unfamiliar Faerie sky, strange constellations wheeling away through oblivion. They would be of no use to him.

The best he could do, then, was to travel in the opposite direction of where he had last heard the call of the Wild Hunt, somewhere far off to his left.

Dean cursed the snow that crunched under his boots; it would be near impossible to hide his tracks. He did what he could to confuse the trail, backtracking and walking backwards and obliterating his prints.

And so he went. To the right, whatever direction that may be. In lieu of any other weapons, he broke off a branch from a barren tree and scraped it to a point against a rock. He loaded his pockets with jagged-edged stones. They were pitiful, primitive defenses, and wouldn't do much good against faerie weapons, but they were better than nothing.

As he went, on high alert for any sounds or movements, he pondered. Dean was no expert on faerie lore, but he had done some cursory research in the past, and he had a pretty good memory. So. This wilderness, the Faerie King had said, was the Stalking Grounds. Somewhere between the human and Fae realm, any creature on these Grounds was fair game for the Hunt. But the hunters couldn’t leave the Grounds any more than the hunted could, and if Dean made it to sunrise then he would be safe; the hunt would end, at least for tonight.

Dean was constantly on edge. He couldn’t be sure which parts of the forest were of his world, and which were of another. Was that a rabbit, or did its legs end in hooves? Was that a cardinal, or did it have a few too many wings? Was that the wind, or were the trees whispering secrets to each other? He hoped that, if they were indeed creatures of Faerie, they weren’t part of the Hunt. The last thing he needed was for little Thumper there to be the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.

After twenty minutes or so of uneasy wandering, Dean spotted a cabin hidden amidst the trees. There were no lights in the windows and it was probably empty, but it meant a temporary haven; a place to regroup, make a plan, and possibly re-arm himself with something more than sticks and stones. Dean hurried to the doorstep of the little cabin, and knocked upon the door, more out of formality than any actual expectation of an answer. For a moment he thought he heard something skittering around inside, but after listening in total silence for a few moments, he decided to force his way in.

He reached inside his coat pocket for his lock pick kit, but found it missing; the paranoid thieving bastards had taken even that from him. Perhaps the pieces were made of iron, or were just too sharp for the faeries’ liking- it didn’t matter now. _Fortunately,_ he thought, digging around in the linty depths of his jeans pocket where old receipts and candy wrappers went to die, _I always have a backup._

Triumphantly, Dean came up with his prize: a paper clip. Within fifteen seconds, he had the door to the cabin unlocked and swinging soundlessly open. He stepped inside, and the sour smell of spoiled milk assaulted his nostrils. It was strong enough to make the average person gag, but the job of regularly digging up rotting corpses and burning human flesh had long since de-sensitized Dean’s nose to putrid odors.

He searched for a light switch and, finding none, cursed the old-fashioned and, in his opinion, crazy mountain people who voluntarily went without electricity and centralized heating. There was a little kitchenette in the corner; Dean figured there must be candles and matches in one of those cupboards. Not bothering to stomp the snow off his boots, Dean tromped over, chose a cupboard door at random, and yanked it open.

Something small, brown, and with a high-pitched British accent tumbled out of the cupboard with an indignant, “I say!”

Dean startled backwards, raising his pointed stick defensively. The small brown British thing appeared to be a little humanoid figure about as tall as a teapot and nearly as round; it had leathery skin and was covered in curly brown hair. It was clothed in tiny little overalls and an equally tiny hat, which it straightened upon its head while fixing Dean with a furious glare.

“Well, it’s about time someone came around to let me out,” it began, in the tone of a vindictive PTA mom who’d been kept waiting too long in the line at the department store and had something to say about it to the poor over-worked clerk who really couldn’t control how many people there were in line during the rush hour, ma’am. Only more high-pitched, and British.

“That moronic old man left in the middle of the night days ago and locked me in here. And on the night of the winter solstice, too, with the Hunt out and about, really, how stupid can you get? I’m not surprised he never came back. Serves him right, if you ask me, for being so inconsiderate. The domestic work really is a thankless job nowadays. And you!” the thing directed at Dean with renewed venom, narrowing beady dark eyes, “You’re no better, tracking snow in the house and leaving the door wide open! What have you got to say for yourself?”

“Um,” Dean said, stick still raised in uncertain caution.

“No matter,” the thing continued, unconcerned. “The man is dead and the milk is curdled; I’ve no responsibility to this house anymore. However, I suppose I owe you thanks for releasing me.” The thing tipped its little hat at Dean. “And a spot of advice; you’d best be getting on home and locking your doors, lad. I hear the horns of the Hunt are out again tonight. You wouldn’t want to find yourself in their sights.”

Then the thing was gone, out the open door or simply into thin air- Dean wasn’t sure. He didn’t have time even to come up with a snarky comment or a midget joke. He stared after where the thing had disappeared for a moment, and then all he had to say was “huh”.

He turned back to the cupboard- empty, now, he hoped- and resumed his search for a light.

“The Land of the Fae,” he muttered sardonically. “The whole place is on mushrooms.”

After searching a few more cupboards, Dean finally found a half-burned candle and a box of matches. Within moments, the cabin was finally illuminated. Looking around, Dean found the source of the spoiled smell. A wooden bowl lay crooked by the door, old milk congealing in the bottom. Dean put the scraggling pieces of folklore together in his head; that thing must have been a brownie.

Not the delicious baked good kind of brownie, unfortunately. More the domestic house-spirit kind of brownie. A lesser type of faerie, brownies would do the housework in exchange for a regular sacrifice, such as a bowl of milk or cream. That brownie had been trapped here since the winter solstice, it had said. And the man it spoke of, he must have been…

Dean brought the candle up to see a picture hanging on the wall. It was a photo of a beautiful mountain landscape, and smiling out from behind the glass pane: Todd Summers.

So Dean was in a dead man’s house. That was nothing unusual. At least the dead man wasn’t still in it, for once.

The presence of the brownie meant Todd had had at least some knowledge of the Faerie realm. Maybe he’d tried to be a hero, and gone out to take on the Wild Hunt on his own. Maybe he thought knowing a little about the supernatural world, encountering it on a small scale, made him an expert. Dean had come across those types before. Or maybe he was just stupid. Dean had encountered plenty of those people, too. Either way, it hadn’t done him any good. Didn’t make him any less dead.

Dean sighed, and turned back to the kitchenette. He raided all the drawers and cupboards, sorting through the useless junk, and eventually came up with a few kitchen knives and a full salt shaker. By the fireplace, he picked up an iron poker. There was a map of the park pinned to the wall; he took that too, and spread it out across the table. The cabin’s location was marked on the map, and it detailed all the trails that wound through the reserve. Digging out a sharpie from another drawer, Dean marked the place where they had found the faerie circle, and worked out approximately where the faeries had dumped him.

He was a few miles away from the circle, and a few more miles from the park entrance. If he could make it there, he wouldn’t be able to leave, but he might be able to camp out until sunrise without much disturbance; Fae didn’t usually like to tread too close to their boundaries. But first, he had to find Sam and Blake. No way was he leaving them alone out there.

The problem was, he had no way of figuring out where they had been dropped. Nothing, that is, but a hunch. Nothing more than a feeling; but Dean had long since learned to trust his instincts.

Faeries liked symmetry. They liked symbolism, and meaning. Dean, Sam and Blake made three victims. Three was a heavily symbolic number. Three points made a triangle. An equilateral triangle was perfectly symmetrical. So if the three of them had been placed at points forming such a triangle, centered around the faerie circle, and Dean was _here_ , then that would put Sam and Blake roughly around- Dean marked the points on the map- _there_ and _there_.

It wasn’t much to go on, admittedly, but it gave him new purpose and motivation. Pocketing the map, sheathing the kitchen knives and hefting the poker in his hands, Dean left the relative safety of the little cabin and stepped back into the cold and dark of the forest. The cabin soon melted back into shadows behind him.

It didn’t take long after that for his good luck to run out; he was surprised he’d gone this long without hearing anything more from the Hunt. But he heard them now, close and coming closer; the pounding of hooves, the growls of hounds, the wild jeers of the hunters.

To his left, the ground sloped down to a little frozen creek. The embankment was steep and littered with fallen trees; Dean quickly slid down the slope and took cover behind one of these logs, one foot planted on the solid surface of the ice. Peering through a hole in the log, Dean waited in utter silence as he heard the Hunt gallop through the trees, closer, closer, but still out of sight.

A deer burst through the underbrush, a stag, sleek and silvery and staggering; blood like ink dripped from a wound in its leg. An arrow whizzed out of the darkness behind the stag and pierced his side. The deer screamed, a startlingly human noise that made the back of Dean’s neck prickle; he wasn’t the sort of hunter that went after deer, but he was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be able to make noises like that.

The Hunt followed soon after the deer and the arrow, hounds leading the way. The stag tried to run, but his legs gave out from under him and the dogs were upon him. He screamed again, but not for long.

Dean exhaled very carefully in the quiet that followed the kill. He watched as the King, regal as ever on his pale horse, observed the bloody deer with a mild look of disdain.

“A messy kill, Dubhán,” the King remarked to one of the archers. “Your marksmanship is faltering, it would seem.”

The archer inclined his head, face pointed towards the earth. “Apologies, my lord. I believe I may be out of practice.”

“You know that I only choose the best to accompany me on this Hunt,” the King replied, tone seemingly without emotion but still with an undeniable bite. “See that your aim is improved for the next kill.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

The angle of Dean’s position would keep him from view if anyone glanced in his direction, but would hardly hold up under closer inspection. He barely dared to breathe.

The Queen peered down from her black horse at the slaughtered deer; her nose wrinkled in faint distaste. “A bit lean for a star stag,” she commented decidedly. “Not fit for the feasts of the Court.”

The King nodded. “As you say, my love. We shall leave it to the dogs.”

Just like that, the white hounds and some of the more animalistic monsters pounced on the carcass, tearing into it with savage fervor. The copper scent of fresh blood spilled through the air; it made Dean’s stomach tight, but he hoped that it would help conceal his scent.

The Hunters seemed unfazed by the brutish bloody display at their feet. Soon nothing remained of the deer but a pile of gnawed bones and a pair of magnificent antlers. The archer who had shot the stag down- Dubhán, the King had called him- tied the antlers to his saddle: a trophy of his kill.

Dean’s leg was falling asleep. He shifted his weight slightly, and the sole of his boot made the smallest of squeaks against the slick surface of the frozen creek.

A few yards away, one of the hounds’ ears pricked up. It turned its head in Dean’s direction.

Dean held his breath and willed his frantic heart to slow, hoping the beast couldn’t hear the pounding that sounded so loud in his ears. The hound prowled towards the log Dean still hid behind, carefully padding with wickedly pointed claws.

Dean’s lungs burned from a lack of breath. Slowly, silently, he shifted his iron poker to his other hand and drew out one of the knives from his belt. It wouldn’t do him much good, not against a pack of hounds that could strip a deer to the bone in two minutes and the rest of the Hunt besides, but he figured he could take out one or two on his way down.

The beast drew closer. One step, two steps, three-

Not so far away, there was a sharp shrill cry that pierced through the brittle air; an animal of some sort, perhaps of the human realm, perhaps not. Every head turned in the direction of the sound, including that of the hound that stopped mere feet from Dean’s hiding place.

The King snapped the reins of his snow-like steed and the Hunt was on the move again, galloping away in a storm of hooves and spirits. One of the Fae raised the bugle to his lips and the hunting horn sounded, echoing behind them. They went down the way Dean had come; he waited until the last creature was well out of sight before letting out his breath in a soft quiet curl of steam.

Dean swept swiftly in the opposite direction the Hunt had gone, focusing on putting distance between them, ignoring the distant sounds of animal screams. His heart had yet to slow down; he doubted that, had he been discovered, he would have made it out alive. Too close.

He felt jittery, naked and vulnerable. He wanted a loaded gun in his hands. He wanted Sam at his back. He wanted the sun to rise on this cold interminable night.

His distrust of the forest was growing ever greater, and every slight sound put him further on edge. Dean hated being out of his depth, and not knowing what might jump out at him next left him jumpy and disturbed. He focused on moving, on keeping his feet pounding forward and his blood flowing.

The air grew colder as the night dragged on, a bitter, biting cold. Dean’s fingers and face were numb, and the tips of his ears ached with penetrating chill. He wondered, distantly, if he should worry about hypothermia, if the cold would kill him if the Hunt didn’t.

Dean’s toes were stiff chunks of ice dragging in his boots. He was heavy-footed and clumsy. He tripped over a tree root concealed beneath the snow, and landed in a sprawl, up to his elbows in cold wet snow. He stood up hurriedly and brushed himself off, but he could still feel melted ice water seeping through the fabric of his jeans. He sighed, and thought longingly of hot black coffee, and warm motel beds, and dry socks, and Legos rattling in the Impala’s heating vent.

On he trudged, shivering and miserable and with a growing conviction that hypothermia might be a legitimate threat, after all.

But then a flare of color, warm and yellow, suddenly glowed in his peripheral vision. Dean turned; there, a few yards away, bobbing gently in midair, was a floating orb of rich golden light.

Dean hesitated, half-raising his knife, but the orb stayed where it was, continuing to shine bright and inviting. It had no eyes or face or any distinguishing feature, but Dean still got the uncanny sense that it was watching him. After a moment or two of tense standoff, the orb flared intensely bright again, and Dean heard a sound- felt it, almost, in the marrow of his bones- reverberating and sweet like wind chimes. It spread through him like sunlight, warming the chill of his insides.

His body relaxed without his permission, and he edged closer, close enough to feel the soft glow of heat it exuded, irresistible to his cold and weary body. Close enough, almost, to touch; his arm reached out, his fingers uncurled-

And the ball of light vanished, leaving him colder than before.

He had a moment of crushing disappointment, soul-deep, before the orb reappeared a few yards further away, with that sweet soothing noise again. And Dean almost, almost, followed the blind instinctual longing to stumble along after it, before his deeply-ingrained hunting training kicked in.

John Winchester’s Rules of Hunting; #24: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

This wisp of light was the only good and bright thing Dean had seen all night, and that made it immediately suspicious. It could be a trap, or it could be leading him to some grisly fate, or it could be drawing him away from where he needed to go.

Dean dredged up a scrap of lore from the faerie category in his brain: a will-o’-the wisp. Mysterious light orbs known to lead travelers to either their death or their salvation. Which was this one trying to do?

Dean weighed his options. On the one hand, the wisp could be leading him to a monster’s den, or to a steep cliff, or to the Wild Hunt. But on the other hand, it could be leading him to warmth, or to safety, or to Sam. Was he willing to take the risk?

Well, his own strategy hadn’t brought him upon Sam or Blake yet, though with how long he had been walking he felt it should have; all it had earned him was cold feet and wet jeans and a close call with the Hunt. And if this wisp _was_ leading him to a horrible death, at least it would keep him warm in the interim.

He took a step forward and followed.


	7. Chapter 7

Like a dog chasing its own tail or a child stalking a butterfly, Dean followed the wisp; it was always just out of reach, but not so far away that Dean wanted to- or felt like he could- give up. It led him on a relatively clear path through the uncharted woods, past the obstructions of fallen logs, away from patches of shadowy thicket, under archways formed by lichen-encrusted trees. Time passed in a vague blur, Dean focusing solely on the wisp always unattainably ahead, until without warning the wisp vanished and did not appear again.

Dean waited patiently for the glowing orb to continue to light the way; a small eternity passed before the cold crept back into his body and he realized the wisp was not going to return. He turned in a circle, searching for the reason he had been led here, but this patch of forest looked just like any other: trees and snow and underbrush. Dean’s blood hummed with tension, anticipating something horrible surging up from the snow or descending from the trees, waiting for the catch.

But when it came, it came from just beyond the other side of the clump of bushes, and it didn’t sound like the howl of a bloodthirsty monster so much as like the clumsy sprinting footsteps and fervent swearing of a just-past-teenage boy.

Dean had a single heart-leaping moment of _Sam_ before the source of the ruckus crashed through the foliage; it was Blake, and he was under attack.

His assailants appeared to be small blue winged humanoid creatures who pestered him as viciously as was possible for their size; they ripped his shirt and coat into tatters, and tugged brutally at his hair, and raked their needle-like fingernails across his face. The creatures darted about Blake like a swarm of hostile bees; he staggered under the onslaught, and plowed right into Dean.

“Jesus-!” Dean got out before Blake collided with him, sending them both sprawling.

Blake was too busy fending off his attackers to issue an apology; some of the blue flying things turned their attention to Dean, clawing at his face, their sharp little nails getting way too close for comfort to his eyeballs.

Dean growled and viciously swatted one of the creatures away. It let out a high-pitched squeal as it careened backwards through the air and landed in a _poof_ of snow. Dean pulled out his knife and slashed at a few others; they backed off enough for him to reach into his coat pocket and pull out the salt shaker he’d snatched from Todd Summers’ cabin. Quickly, he unscrewed the top and flung the contents at the swarm in a spray of white crystals.

The things shrieked in piercing protest, but relented from their attack and dove down to the snow, where they meticulously began picking up the grains of salt, one by one by one.

Blake slowly lifted his arms from where they covered his head, his eyes wide, and Dean hauled him up off the snow. Blake gaped at the creatures crouching at their feet. “What are those things?”

Dean peered down and nudged one of the creatures with the toe of his boot. It looked up at him with murder in its eyes, but couldn’t draw itself away from the scattering of salt. “Pixies, looks like,” he answered, “Or maybe sprites. I forget the difference.”

Blake reached up to his face and touched the bloody scrapes on his cheek. “How did you stop them?”

“If you spill salt or sugar in front of a faerie, they have to stop and count each grain,” Dean explained. That was one piece of lore most sources could agree on. “There are a lot of them, though, and that wasn’t a ton of salt, so I suggest we keep moving before they finish.”

Without any further hesitation, Dean spun on his heel and, picking a direction at random, set off with the illusion of purpose. Blake stumbled after him, peppering him with questions as civilians so often did.

“Wait, Dean, hold up. What the hell is going on? Like, actually, _what the hell is happening?_ ”

Dean didn’t have the patience for this right now. He was cold and exhausted, and his heart hadn’t settled down to a reasonable pace since Sam had first stepped inside the faerie ring.

“I don’t have the time or the desire to give you the full Talk, Blake, so here’s the condensed version: all your nightmares are real, and you’re in the middle of one.”

“But what does that-”

“Listen,” Dean bit out, turning and shoving a knife and a salt shaker into Blake’s hands, “If you want to stay alive, shut up, stay behind me, and stab anything that jumps at you. Got it?”

Blake gaped at him, but shut his mouth and nodded.

“Good. Now, I don’t suppose you’ve seen Sam anywhere?”

He shook his head.

“Awesome.” Dean tromped off again, frustrated and anxious.

For some time they went along like that, Dean leading blindly and Blake following in sullen scared silence. Dean was in the middle of wondering whether that will ‘o’ the wisp would come back anytime soon when Blake spoke up again, soft and afraid.

“What happened to my sisters?”

Dean sighed out a cloud of vapor. This part of the job was always the worst. “Blake… they’re not your sisters anymore.”

“But they’re still alive, right? They can still come home?”

Dean bit his lip at the fragile tremor of hope in Blake’s voice. He pondered what he could say to Blake that wouldn’t crush him, but could come up with nothing. His silence did the job just as well.

Dean heard Blake sniff behind him. It was cold out; Dean’s nose was running too. But he knew that wasn’t why.

He wished, fervently, for Sam.

“They’re alive, Blake. Now they will never die. But it’s better than the alternative.”

 _Better than Hell_. Dean thought of the four men whose souls had gone to the Tiend, Todd and Christian and Roger and Andrew. He thought of their families, mourning and weeping but so sure that they were in a better place. He thought of Meg, sneering with Sam’s face, thought of _a prison, made of bone and flesh and blood and fear_. He very deliberately did not think of Dad.

Another long quiet; Blake sniffed a few more times, coughed once. Then asked,

“What about your brother?”

Dean ignored the tight ball of worry in his gut. “He’s okay. I’ll find him.”

“But what if… what if _they_ already found him? What if they… took him?”

“They didn’t,” Dean said, simply. “I would know.”

“How would you-”

“I just _would,_ okay?”

A beat of silence, two. “Okay.”

Blake was just humoring him; Dean knew that much. But it was true. Dean would know if Sam was- was gone. He had to believe that.

‡‡‡

Dean wondered if he was imagining that the sky was beginning to lighten. Time was strange here; it seemed he had been wandering for an eternity, but at the same time he felt like he hadn’t made any progress at all. His watch was of no help to him; the digital numbers were frozen on the exact moment of nightfall.

He stared hard at the horizon, trying hard to distinguish if it was just a shade lighter than it had been, vigorously hoping that morning would soon arrive. They would be safe then, at least from the Hunt.

“Just a while longer,” he murmured to Blake. “Their time is almost up. They can’t hunt in the daylight.”

“And they’ll be gone?”

“For tonight.”

Dean squinted skyward. Yes, definitely, the eastern skyline was more midnight blue than black. Soon, they’d be in the clear. It would be so much easier to find Sam in daylight, without having to worry about-

_“…Dean...”_

Somewhere, not so far away, perhaps, on the other side of the trees and hills. Dean stopped and stilled, listening in perfect silence.

Blake began, “What are you-”

“Shh!” Dean jerked his hand in a cutting motion. Had he imagined it? “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“… _Dean!”_

Closer, this time, definitely there. Definitely familiar.

Sam.

_“Dean!... Help!...”_

Dean ran without a second thought. Blake followed, trampling up clouds of powdery snow, shouting, “Dean, wait, hold up!”

Dean ignored him. Sam cried out again. _“Dean!”_

“Sam?” Dean yelled back. “Where are you?” He skidded clumsily down a small slope and nearly tripped face-first into the snow, but he didn’t care. He kept running.

“Dean, shh, be careful, they’ll hear,” Blake cautioned, sliding more carefully down the slope, looking around with quick paranoid glances.

“Here!” Sam said, just on the other side of that line of trees. His voice wavered, almost imperceptibly, but Dean knew the sound of his brother in pain. Knew it too well.

Dean pushed his way through the low-hanging branches, snapping them without a thought, and there. Sam was only a few yards away, sitting at the base of a tree, his hands pressed hard to his stomach and the snow around him stained and splattered red.

“Sammy,” Dean breathed out, sliding to his knees at Sam’s side and pressing his hands to Sam’s stomach, his shoulders, the sides of his face. “Hey, look at me. What happened?”

Dean heard Blake break through the trees and catch his breath at the bloody sight. Sam coughed; it sounded wet. “The Hunt. One of the hounds got me. Dunno how I got away, I think they let me…”

“Okay, okay, let me see.” Dean gently pried Sam’s bloodstained hands away from the wound and lifted up his shirts to get a good look. Sam hissed. “Sorry, sorry,” Dean soothed.

Claw marks, it looked like; four of them raked across Sam’s abdomen. Startling crimson, deep and still bleeding. Dean quickly shirked his own coat, stripping off his flannel and pressing the fabric down on the wounds; Sam strangled a pained cry in his throat. Dean was only wearing a t-shirt now, but with Sam trembling beneath his hands he barely noticed his own shivers.

Blake knelt next to him with a crunch of snow and began scooping up the white powder with bare hands. “Here,” he said quietly. “Pack his wounds with snow. It’ll help stop infection.”

Dean knew that, of course he did, but he always tended to lose his head a bit when Sam’s blood was spilling into his hands. “Listen, Sammy,” he rambled as he pressed handfuls of snow onto the claw marks, “It’s not so bad, we’ll get you out of here and to a hospital and you’ll be fine, it can’t be long until sunrise, can’t be more than an hour or so.”

“Time is weird here,” Sam mumbled. Dean looked up and tried to meet his eyes, but they were half-lidded and darkly shadowed, his skin gone all waxy and pale. He coughed again and a shock of blood splattered his lips, the only color in his gray face. He looked awful, like one of the countless corpses Dean had seen in a morgue, stiff and cold with death.

Dean pressed a palm to Sam’s cheek, hoping to somehow bring warmth and life back into that ghastly pallor. “Sammy, stay with me, okay? You’re gonna be fine.”

“No,” Sam said, tone suddenly gone eerily calm and sure. “I won’t. And neither will you.”

Dean’s brow furrowed in confusion, and a chill crawled down his back. “What?”

Sam grinned, then, and his teeth were sharp bloody points, like a shark’s.

Dean yanked his hand away and Blake scrambled backwards with a yelp. Dean shot to his feet, backing away and pulling out his knife. “What are you,” he growled.

Still smiling, the Sam-thing seemed to shimmer and melt away, shrinking and thinning into a pale sharp form, a faerie or an imp. “Bait,” it answered with a jagged sneer.

As if on cue, Dean heard the horns again; he was really starting to hate that sound. A sound like an avalanche came rushing towards them.

Blake grabbed hold of Dean’s sleeve and tried to drag him back, eyes wide with horror. “Dean let’s go, we gotta go, we gotta go _now._ ”

Dean shook him off, and surged forward to press his knife against the Sam-thing’s throat. “Where’s Sam,” he demanded, low and dangerous.

“Too late,” it grinned; it was still using Sam’s voice. “We already got him. Ripped him apart. Dragged him off to Hell. He’s screaming for you: ‘ _Dean! DEAN!’_ ”

“Shut up,” Dean snarled, heart in his mouth. “Shut up, you’re lying-”

Blake gripped his arm and forcibly dragged him away. “Dean, come _on!_ ”

Dean snapped back into himself; the Hunt was drawing closer, and the Sam-thing would tell him nothing he needed to hear. He scooped his coat up off the ground and sprinted away, Blake hot on his heels. Behind him, the Sam-thing laughed, taking Sam’s laugh that Dean so loved and twisting it around, the same way Meg had, the same way Dean still heard sometimes, in his nightmares.

Dean forced it from his mind: the terrible laugh, the thing’s taunting words, the blood on his hands. He was cold and afraid and hunted, and he let the primitive fear take over, as he so rarely did, and just _ran._

Maybe Blake was beside him; maybe not. Honestly, at this point Dean didn't have the capacity to care. His vision narrowed to the ground in front of him and the trees passing in blurs on every side, until suddenly there weren't any trees anymore.

Dean stopped. The ground felt different beneath his feet, less solid, almost… hollow. He looked around. He was standing in what looked like an enormous clearing, vaguely round in shape, a stretch of snow uninterrupted by any sort of growth. It took a moment for it to click: he was treading on a frozen over lake. And all around the edges, in the tree line, the Hunt. Watching. Surrounding. Waiting. Glowing unearthly in the fading moonlight. And Blake was no longer in sight.

Directly on the opposite side of the lake, two mounted horses stepped onto the frozen surface. One black, one white. Dean didn't need to see more than that to recognize their riders.

Only one way to go, then. Dean walked forward with footsteps as heavy as fate, and met the Faerie King and Queen in the exact center of the lake. There was a solemn sense of ceremony about it; they all knew Dean could run no longer. The King and Queen perched on their horses above him, observing him coolly, waiting.

“No more games,” Dean said flatly. “Where is he.”

They said nothing.

“You don't have him,” Dean realized. “You'd be flaunting it if you did.” A wry smile unfurled across his face. “Outsmarted you, huh? That's Sammy for ya.”

Their expressions were as still and brittle as ice. But Dean was sure; whatever else might have happened to Sam tonight, he was safe from the Fae.

Behind him, muffled cries and scuffling footsteps made him turn. One of the faerie archers- Dubhán, Dean remembered- had Blake trussed up like a freshly caught deer. He dragged the kid backwards across the ice and dumped him without ceremony at the King’s horse’s feet. Blake looked up at Dean with naked fear, clearly struggling not to hyperventilate around the gag in his mouth.

Dean’s satisfaction soured. Sam might be safe, but Dean and the one civilian he had a chance to save were still in deep trouble.

“So,” Dean began. He met the King’s eyes, doing his best to remain poised. “Whaddaya say we just call this whole Hunt off? We could have a tea party, sit on toadstools, make each other flower crowns or whatever you fairies do-”

“Enough games,” the King interrupted. He drew his sword. “Time is running short and morning draws near. The Tiend must be satisfied.”

Dean’s mind raced against the pounding of his heart. “Don’t you think,” he began, stalling for time, “It’s kinda unsporting for you to kill us without a real fight? I mean, where’s the fun in that, huh?”

The King’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean to say, mortal?”

Dean swallowed. Well. No turning back now. “I challenge you to a duel.”

A murmur rippled around the circle. Dean heard growls, whispers, laughter. The King lifted his chin, a smile pulling at his mouth. Next to him, the Queen tittered.

“You know not what you suggest, boy,” the King said. “No Fae or Man has ever bested me in combat.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?”

The King’s hint of a smile dropped, his face hardening. “Very well. We’ll do this quickly. Give him a sword!”

The King dismounted in one smooth motion, and a page broke from the circle to give Dean his weapon. Dean hefted the blade in his hands.

In truth, Dean didn’t think he could win this fight. Dad had never taught him and Sam to swordfight- they didn’t cover that in the Marine Corps- and apart from four months of fencing classes in tenth grade, all Dean’s sword fighting education came from watching those geeky medieval movies Sam liked so much. Dean was just hoping to hold out until sunrise- perhaps then the King would be forced to let him be and withdraw the Hunt.

The page took the reins of the King’s horse and the collar of Blake’s shirt, guiding the former and dragging the latter to the edge of the circle. The Queen followed, cruel amusement lingering in the gaze she cast Dean’s way.

The King stood before him and bowed; Dean did the same. Then, between one instant in the next, the King was on him, and everything was instinct and sensation and sound, no time for thought.

Duck, parry, thrust. The cold wet snow kicking up between them, the sinister _whoosh_ of a blade close over his head, the clanging clash of metal that sent a tingling shock of impact up his arms. The King’s eyes, narrowed in frigid blue hatred, somehow the only thing Dean could see.

A low swipe caught him across the stomach, and Dean narrowly backpedaled away; his shirt ripped and a thin burning cut appeared on his skin.

A moment later he was swiftly reminded of the fact that they were fighting on a frozen pond when his feet slid out from under him. He landed hard on his back, the breath momentarily knocked from his lungs.

The King smirked above him and raised his sword for a fatal strike. Gasping, Dean rolled as the blade came down; it buried itself in the ice instead of his heart.

Dean came up swinging, aiming low and going for a hamstring. But the King was faster and dodged. Back on his feet and regaining his breath, Dean attacked with new vigor. They were off again, whirling across the ice.

Sword fighting wasn't so bad, Dean decided in the breathless moments between strikes. It was like a sharper, less intimate version of the sparring his dad had made him and Sam do since they were old enough to throw a punch. All the instincts Dean had developed there were sustaining him through this fight.

Despite all that, Dean couldn't get the upper hand. He was holding his own, but he'd yet to land a single blow. And as a human, he was tiring far sooner than the immortal King of Faerie. His breathing was growing harsh, lungs scalded by the below-freezing air. Another swing came dangerously close to his throat.

Dean took a few steps backward and heard something crack. A quick glance told him that they’d circled back around to the spot where the King’s blade had gone through the ice, and the hole was spider webbing beneath Dean’s feet.

The King advanced, smirking. Dean kept backing up, and the ice groaned in complaint. He froze, body crouched low and hands spread out, watching as the cracks splintered wider with every slight shift of his weight.

The King stopped a few feet away. “You fight well, for a mortal,” he conceded. “But the winter is my realm, boy. You never truly had a hope of defeating me. Still,” he continued, and held his sword high once more, “You shall die with honor.”

Dean ducked his head and lifted his own sword in defense, but the King did not bring his blade down on him. Rather, he stabbed it deep into the frozen surface of the pond. Cracks shot out quick as lightning, reaching the already fragile place where Dean stood.

He had one moment to glimpse the cold triumph on the King’s face before the ice gave and the black water swallowed him whole.


	8. Chapter 8

It was the sort of cold that was just too much to feel. Dean’s heart stuttered from the shock of it when he hit the water, and he reflexively gasped. Big mistake; the water flooded down his throat and trying to expel it only drowned him faster. He struggled, trying to get his bearings, trying to get his limbs to do what he wanted them to do. His sword slipped from his hand and sank towards the bottom of the pond. His lizard brain screamed in primal panic and he realized in somewhat vague detachment that he was going to die.

A sense of calm stole over him. If this was the end, at least he’d gone down fighting. Maybe he’d stalled long enough, maybe the sun was rising somewhere above him, maybe he’d given Blake and Sam a chance to escape the Faerie Realm.

Sam. Oh, Sam. Dean wished he’d gotten to say goodbye. _Sorry, Sammy,_ he thought. _Don’t do anything stupid, okay?_

Something was moving through the water before him, emanating a soft green light. It was a woman, beautiful and pale, dark hair streaming and clothes shimmering. Water faerie, Dean registered dimly. She looked at him with wide wondrous eyes, and reached out to touch his face. Dean’s vision faded.

And then some strong sudden force seized him and dragged upwards and away, breaking back through the surface and into the sharp loud world.

Dean landed on the ice and instantly rolled over, coughing and puking up what felt like gallons and gallons of icy pond water, his whole body convulsing with it. When he had expelled all the contents of his lungs and stomach besides, convulsions turned to violent shivers. Big warm hands landed on his back, and Dean looked up in wonderment.

“S-Sammy?”

“Shh,” Sam said. Dean blinked. Sam’s eyes were huge and distant, still reflecting starlight that wasn’t there. He was clearly still under the influence of whatever this Realm was doing to him.

“Sam,” Dean gasped. Sam pressed a hand briefly to the back of his neck and stood. Still dazed from near-drowning and lying on the ice, Dean looked up at him and thought he looked impossibly tall. Small orbs of soft light drifted lazily around him, like fireflies, if fireflies were magical color-shifting beings. He looked strong and strange and powerful. He looked like Fae.

“How dare you,” someone said, and Dean remembered they were not alone. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, still shaking, and turned to face the King, who continued, “This is not your battle. You have no right to interfere.”

Sam laughed at him. “That’s rich, coming from you. You’re not even meant to be here. The whole Wild Hunt is just a cop-out for you, isn’t it?”

The King’s eyes narrowed. “We have broken none of the ancient Laws.”

“Stretched them to the breaking point, though, haven’t you?”

“Sam,” Dean interrupted. He tried to stand, but his legs were numb. “What are you t-talking about?”

Sam looked down. “The Tiend,” he answered. “It was always meant to be seven faerie souls, but the Fae have been kidnapping humans for centuries to use as substitutes. Because,” he raised his voice towards the King, “They’re too cowardly to pay their own debts.”

The King’s face was stony. “Who told you that?”

“You’re not the only magical things in these woods. All told, I’ve had a very enlightening night. I know you’re not the biggest fish in this pond.”

“Impudent mortal,” the King snarled, moving forward and lifting his sword.

But Sam’s fingers twitched and the blade shot from his hand, disappearing into the hole in the ice. “Not as mortal as you think, _Your Highness_.” He made a mockery of the last two words.

Dean’s stomach lurched in the following silence. “Sam,” he said, shocked. “How did you…”

Sam looked down at his hands- not surprised exactly, but somewhat in awe. “Everything’s so much closer to the surface here,” he murmured. “I can feel it, Dean, thrumming just under my skin, you know, like I could just-” He clenched his fists; out of the corner his eye, Dean thought he saw the unflappable King flinch.

Sam looked up and addressed the King once more. “So here’s what’s gonna happen. You will release the souls of the men you’ve already captured and let them face their own judgement, and you’ll supply the Tiend from your own court as you were always meant to do, or I will find out exactly just what I can do with these powers of mine.”

“ _Sam_ ,” Dean said again, but his brother ignored him.

The King still looked murderous, raring for a fight even without his weapon. “I will not be ordered about by _any_ mortal,” he snarled, stalking forward with dangerous intent.

Sam put up his hand and the King halted mid-stride; he curled his fingers a bit and the King’s eyes went wide, visibly gasping for breath.

“Strike two,” Sam said, low and even. Dean’s heart pounded as he shivered and stared at his brother, a suddenly lethal creature.

A moment later Sam dropped his hand and the King unfroze, coughing and gulping for air, more undignified than he’d ever been. The circle was absolutely, profoundly still, the King’s gasps the only sound. Dean wondered if Sam was keeping the rest of them in place, too.

 The King straightened once he’d caught his breath, lifting his chin and smoothing his robes and clearly attempting to regain some of his regality. Still, they all knew who had the upper hand now.

“Care to try again?” Sam asked, faux-casual.

The King only stood there, the stillness only broken when the Queen stepped forward from the circle to take her husband’s arm. “My love,” she warned. “Perhaps we ought to let them be. You know what his kind were meant for.”

His kind? Meant for? “What the hell does that mean,” Dean growled, but no one deigned to answer him.

The King blew out a careful breath. Concession. “Very well,” he said stiffly, and snapped his fingers. There was a pause, and then another Fae brought forth a small box, wooden, ancient, and extravagantly carved with hundreds of symbols and designs. The King reached into his robes and pulled out a key, inserting it into the box’s lock and opening the lid.

Four orbs of bright blinding light rose from the box, illuminating the clearing as they streamed up towards the sky and disappeared in a flash.

“The captured souls are free,” the King said bitterly. “The payment shall come from my own ranks.”

An uneasy mutter rippled among the Fae, but no one dared object.

“What about the girls?” Dean asked, trying to get to his feet again. His legs were marginally more cooperative this time. “Blake’s sisters.”

The King shot him a poisonous look. “The women are not up for bargain.”

Dean looked at Sam, but his brother shook his head. “They ate the food of Faerie,” he apologized. “Some Laws cannot be broken.”

Dean knew that, had known it all night. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to look Blake’s way, still tied up at the edge of the circle.

The King looked up at the brightening sky as his horse was brought forward. “Morning is breaking. The Hunt ends.” He swung himself onto his steed; his Queen did the same beside him. “Farewell, hunters Winchester. I expect we shan’t meet again.”

He turned his horse and he and the Queen galloped off into the woods, matching blurs of black and white. The rest of the Hunt followed in a storm of hooves and claws; the bugle sounded once more, and the woods went quiet just as the first rays of sunlight pierced over the trees.

The world seemed to become… less. The colors weren’t so bright, the air not so charged, and the familiar misery of dull earthly cold sunk into Dean’s bones. Just like that, the realm of Faerie slipped away.

And Sam. The fairy lights that had surrounded him disappeared, the strange light in his eyes faded, the familiar slouch returned to his shoulders. And when he spoke, his voice didn’t hold the cold commanding tone he had directed at the King.

“Jesus, Dean, you absolute _idiot._ ”

Yep. Plain old Sammy, back to normal.

“About time you sh-showed up,” Dean said through chattering teeth.

“What were you _thinking_ , dueling the King like that? One of the stupidest things you’ve ever done, I swear to God.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean groused. “Bought us enough t-time though, didn’t I?”

Sam sighed, and Dean knew he had more to say, but they were both cold and miserable and Blake was still tied up in a heap on the lakeshore. Sam took Dean’s arm and threw it over his shoulders, supporting his weight. Dean thought that it wasn’t really necessary, but his legs were still numb and clumsy and Sam was solid and warm against him so he allowed himself to lean into it. Together they limped over to Blake.

Dean untied the gag in his mouth while Sam cut the bindings, and soon Blake was free. The kid gingerly sat up, rubbing his arms and looking down at the ground. He seemed small and wounded. Dean exchanged a glance with Sam, heart heavy. It was the oldest rule of hunting: they couldn’t save everyone.

“You alright, kid?” Dean asked softly.

Blake spared him a glance before returning his gaze downwards. “So that's it,” he rasped in lieu of answering. “They're just gone?”

“I'm so sorry, Blake,” Sam said with the full force of his empathy. “But there's no coming back from becoming Fae. Your sisters are part of Faerie now.”

“Ella, Ivy,” Blake whispered to himself, rocking a little. “God, I didn't even get to say goodbye.”

Dean closed his eyes for a brief moment and leaned a bit more into Sam. It always killed him, these cases with kids, cases with brothers.

“C’mon,” Sam said after a moment, reaching out to Blake with the hand that wasn't holding up Dean, and wasn't that just like Sam, strong enough somehow to hold everything together. “Let's get you home.”

Blake sniffed and wiped the back of one hand across his eyes like a little kid, then took the hand Sam proffered. Then he was up, and they were all three hobbling together into the woods again as the sun came up over the trees.

‡‡‡

Blake knew the park well enough that, once they found a path, he was able to navigate them all back to the parking lot. By that time, Dean was colder than he’d ever been and thoroughly done with this hunt. Halfway through the trek back Sam had made Dean strip off his waterlogged shirt and coat and given him his own, even as Dean had tried to refuse.

“You need it more than I do, dumbass,” Sam had said, but they were both shivering now.

There was a fresh layer of snow blanketing his baby; Dean grumbled as he swept it off. It hadn’t snowed while they were in Faerie, but apparently, things were different here in the real world. He got in the car and had to turn the key in the ignition three times and pump the gas pedal a bit before the engine would start. The heater started going full blast, and Dean could hear Legos rattling. He smiled a little and ran his hand over the dashboard, feeling weary relief, feeling at home.

Sam was over by Blake’s car, leaning down by the driver’s window, talking to the kid quietly. Dean watched him offer a sad smile and nod. Then he straightened, and Blake’s car pulled out of the lot and went down the road. Sam trudged over to the car and got in, just sitting for a second before saying, “I think we should follow him, make sure he gets home okay.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, and put the car in drive.

Fifteen minutes later, they drove down Darby’s main street, and Dean was surprised by how clear the roads were considering it had snowed last night and the day was still dawning. The piles of snow on the sidewalks were as gray as if they had been there for days.

Next to him, Sam was trying to get the backup phone they kept in the glove box to turn on in the cold. Dean’s watch was still frozen on the time he’d stepped in the Faerie ring, and he assumed Sam’s was too. Their phones had been taken from them before they were separated, so the backup and Dad’s old phone were all they had now.

“Got it,” Sam finally muttered as the screen lit up with a cheery little tone. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Sam tense. “Dean,” he said.

“Hm?” Dean answered, glancing over. Sam’s eyes were wide.

His brother held up the phone. “We’ve been gone four days.”

“What?” Dean exclaimed, but saw it was true. The screen read: December 31, 2006.

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Sam said. “We shoulda known, all the lore says time moves differently in the Faerie Realm. And the King did say they were running out of time for the Tiend. It’s the last day of the year: time to collect.”

A chill that had nothing to do with the weather prickled Dean’s neck. “Jesus,” he said. “Well, it’s a good thing we saved those poor dudes’ souls just in time.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, looking down, and Dean knew they were both remembering the strange and fearsome power Sam had yielded that forced the Fae to do his bidding. They were going to have to talk about that, Dean knew, but right now they were turning onto Blake’s street, and the kid had already parked in his driveway and gotten out, tracking his way through un-shoveled snow up to his front door.

Dean parked by the curb and watched as a curtain in a first-floor window twitched, and a moment later the front door flew open and Blake’s mother ran out in a bathrobe and slippers, hair a mess, grabbing her son by the shoulders and hauling him down into a crushing hug. Dean’s heart twisted at the thought of her barely sleeping for the past few days, staying up late and waking up early, always looking out that window, already weighed down with the loss of her daughters and missing her son and just wishing, hoping that any of her children might return to her.

Blake’s hands went up to his mother’s back and Dean could see tears on both their faces, Blake’s lips moving as he pressed his face into the space between his mother’s neck and shoulder, and Dean looked away. Their work here was pretty much done, he figured. They had done all they could.

“They’ll have a hard time,” Dean said, half to himself, “But they’ll be okay.”

He pulled the car away from the curb and headed back the way they’d come, a glance in the rearview mirror the last he saw of Blake and his mother embracing in the snow.


	9. Epilogue

The lukewarm motel shower water did little to banish the chill that had settled in Dean’s bones, especially since he knew he had to save half of it for Sam. When he was finished, he traded the bathroom off to Sam and changed immediately into sweatpants, socks and a long-sleeved Henley. He pulled the comforter off the bed, wrapped it around his shoulders, and settled down on the carpet in front of the radiator with no intention of moving for the rest of the day.

Sam emerged from the bathroom about ten minutes later, hair dripping but already clothed. He smiled and shook his head when he saw Dean bundled up on the floor, and went over to his duffle where he took out the first aid kit.

Dean frowned and sat up. “What’s the kit for? Did you get hurt and not tell me?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “No, Dean,” he said, exasperated. “But you did.”

“Oh,” Dean said, remembering the thin cut on his stomach. “Right.”

Sam came over and knelt beside him, trying to pull aside the blankets, but Dean held them close. “It’s not a big deal, Sam, it’ll probably scab over in a day or two.”

“I know,” Sam said, “But just- just let me, okay?”

Dean paused, then let the comforter fall off his shoulder and pulled up his shirt. “Alright, alright, fine. If it makes you feel better.”

The last bit was said in jest, but Sam replied in all seriousness as he swabbed the cut with antiseptic. “You always take care of me. It’s only fair I get to return the favor sometimes.”

Dean didn’t know quite what to say to that. He was a quiet for a moment, feeling a little warmer, then came back with, “Okay, Samantha, I promise to let you kiss all my boo-boos from now on.”

“Shut up, jerk,” Sam shot back, taping a long bandage over the cut and getting up to put the kit away.

“And your hands are cold, bitch!” Dean called after him.

Sam just huffed a laugh and turned on the TV. It was a weather station, and they were calling for more snow. “Looks like we might be stuck here tonight,” Sam said. He pulled the comforter off his own bed and settled opposite Dean, producing a deck of cards from seemingly nowhere. “Wanna kill some time?”

They played poker and gin rummy and war all through the long gray winter afternoon, reminding Dean of when they were kids whiling the days away waiting for Dad to get back, just him and Sam and a motel room, a pack of cards and a crappy TV. Dean didn’t need much to be happy, and right now it wasn’t hard to pretend, if he didn’t think too much, that Dad was just on another hunt, that he would be back soon.

Evening fell early and the room sank into ever-deepening shadows, the TV casting flickering light over the room. Neither he nor Sam bothered to get up and turn on a light, and they migrated to sit at the base of Dean’s bed, breaking out the whiskey and watching old sitcoms with the blankets around their shoulders and their legs stretched out in front of them.

“Sam,” Dean said in the middle of a _Roseann_ re-run, a little tipsy, a little drowsy, “I thought you couldn’t control your powers?”

Sam turned his head to look at him, forehead creased, hair dried wild and in his eyes. “I can’t.”

“But you did. In Faerie.”

Sam rolled his head back towards the TV. He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then: “It was different there. _I_ was different, you know? I could feel it for the first time, everything I could do. I could touch it. And part of me really wanted it, really wanted to take it and use it. Part of me wanted to stay.”

Dean bit his lip. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Sam looked at him again. “But it wasn’t _really_ me. It was like… I don’t know, it was like being high or something. Like just being in Faerie was a drug. But that part of me, it doesn’t exist here, or it’s dormant, or something.”

Dean was quiet.

“I tried, earlier, while you were in the shower,” Sam admitted. “I tried to move stuff with my mind.”

Dean’s eyes flew wide, shocked. “Sam!”

Sam shook his head. “Nothing happened, Dean, don’t worry. Whatever it was, it’s gone now. I’m the same as I’ve ever been.”

“Oh,” Dean said. Paused. “So still a girl and a freak then.”

“Shut up,” Sam laughed, tension broken, moment passed. Just as Dean had intended.

Because Sam didn’t know that his powers made Dean scared. Not scared of Sam, never scared of Sam, but scared that they might lead him somewhere Dean couldn’t follow. The Queen’s words rang in his ears, _a demon has laid claim on you, Samuel Winchester,_ and what the hell did that even mean, anyway? Dean was scared that the world of monsters and demons and other nasties had its hooks in his brother, that it might drag Sam under and leave Dean alone in the aftermath. He remembered Dad’s last words, and took another drink of whiskey to try and forget them.

Sam changed the channel to the live coverage of New Year’s Eve in Times Square. There was still about an hour left in the year. They watched the cheering crowds and the musical performances for a few minutes in silence.

“I never woulda stayed, Dean,” Sam eventually said, all sleepy and slurred, listing into Dean’s side. “I wouldn’t wanna live in a world you’re not in.”

Dean swallowed and closed his eyes for a second. Stupid Sam, always saying the girliest things that Dean had to pretend didn’t make him feel warm. “Yeah,” he said roughly. “Me neither, Sammy.”

When the ball dropped in Times Square, neither Sam nor Dean were awake to see it. Dean’s head was tilted back against the bed, Sam snored on his shoulder, and outside the warm motel room snow was settling on the Montana mountains, and the world and all its creatures great and small and terrible and kind kept turning, turning, turning.


End file.
